Petrol in a diesel !!!
 

My mates missus put petrol in their brand new octavia 4x4 diesel at the weekend and didn't notice !! She then drove a 100 miles round trip, struggling to get it going coming back. I'm surprised it done 100 miles on petrol without totally failing. It's gone into the garage today to see what damage it has done, quite a bit I'd have thought !!!

5-6k worth of damage I would imagine
I'm surprised it lasted 100 miles too

As said petrol in a diesel isn't as bad but 100 miles! Yeah that will be a big bill.

not as bad as you think..
diesel uses compression, where petrol is ignition,
so as long as the compressed 'booms' weren't to bad it should be ok, and nothing a good oil change and filter change won't sort, oh and fresh diesel..

He's thinking in the region of a few hundred quid, think he'd be lucky with that.

i was told it will feck the valves up ect, shoot if im wrong

I thought it was all about the high pressure pump not being lubricated when pumping petrol and therefore wearing out very quickly.....................
and high pressure pumps being very expensive!

Some diesel engines in the octavia use a common rail, some unit injectors.

Petrol is surely bad news for either system?

i used to work for a recovery company as a roadside tech and saw this day in day out, petrol into diesel and other way round and if im onest once drained out and refilled with the correct fuel we never saw any noticable problems with the cars.

i heard many years ago people used to put petrol in diesel cars in the winter.
cant see how though

Depends on the fuel pumps mainly, older diesels can get away with it, newer ones are normally screwed :(
May have screwed up the engine of the Octavia tbh :(

yep, my mrs did it to our mazda bongo garage said it would cost at least £1500, i said no thanks drained the fuel put in some diesel and new fuel filter and all was well.

If any damage done it is most likely to the HP fuel pump. In most cases draining the tank, fit new filter and purge through the system will have it running again.

Sadly the second or third owner will have the cost of replacing a HP pump that has had accelerated wear from the petrol.

Had a 80/20 mix in the van, 80 being petrol,
It ran fine fine on a 300 mile round trip i had to do.
Just kept topping it up with diesel on the way, if you turned it off it was a balls to get it started again, so kept it running.

It ran a bit **** for a while after, as in down on power but fine now without doing a thing.

It's down to the very small tolerances in the high pressure fuel pump and as mentioned when petrol is being run through it,it can become unlubricated and reduce pressure to the point of poor performance.
I haven't had any do this as yet but tbho I also haven't had any do 100 miles with the petrol in the tank as they usually cut out within a short period depending on the mix.
It obviously wasn't to strong a mix in this case given the distance travelled and I would have thought a filter change and the tank drained with fresh fuel would do the trick.

When we get a misfueled vehicle (within warranty) recovered to the dealership, it is a very expensive job to sort as the manufacturer will not warranty the car unless the fuel system is replaced !

Usual cost on a Jaguar ?

£4-£5k, most often the cost is picked up by the owners insurance company as it is classed as accidental damage.

I don't know how flexible Skoda are on a new car that has been misfueled but I would expect warranty issues if someone just drains the system.

NB. I am not saying that you won't get away with simply draining the system but just giving an insight into how manufacturers approach it !

Many moons (decades) ago when I was a young lad in the RAF we diluted the diesel in the older Landrovers with 25% petrol to help them start and run in some of the really cold winters we had then. Much colder and longer term than we experience now.

Also some time back wifey (bless her) filled our Porsche 944 turbo with £50 diesel and started it. Towed it home. Drained the tank thru the injection rail test point on the pump, refilled with petrol and started first time. Bit smokey the first two tanks and no problem thereafter tillwe sold it several years later.




:)

I ran diesel through my scoob once through when i got mislead by the **** pump colourings at BP a few years back. Needless to say when i towed the car home and started it it was like a smoke machine. Luckily i only put a fiver or so in the car. I had to dilute the diesel right down, run, top up, run, top up, run, top up and after a while of the car running like a dog it was fine. Lesson learned though.

Rather than making the nozzles different sizes I always think they should make them different shapes so you can't stuff it up. A bit like the kids toy with the shapes in the box.

Obviously no use for imports though.

...or don't let women use cars.
I think a simple way to do it would be to only have one fuel type per pump clearly stating what fuel it is.

I did this once, its very easily done, i borrowed a pool car from work which was deisel, put five quids worth of petrol in then noticed so topped up with deisel and it was fine, saying that i didnt do 100 miles on full petrol, so cant imagine it will do it much good.

This is exactly the problem on new generation high pressure diesels. The diesel fuel lubes the fuel pump and injectors. pre '00 (approx) diesel engine will run on most things without a problem as the fuel pump runs a relatively low pressure compared to modern diesels.

On diesel engines, it features a high-pressure (over 1,000 bar/15,000 psi) fuel rail feeding individual solenoid valves, as opposed to low-pressure fuel pump feeding unit injectors (Pumpe/Düse or pump nozzles). Third-generation common rail diesels now feature piezoelectric injectors for increased precision, with fuel pressures up to 1,800 bar/26,000 ps source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_rail


Driving 100 miles on a mostly petrol mix will not do the pump any good whatsoever. if caught alry on the damage is usually minimal but again depends on the miles driven and the petrol/diesel mix.


Won't be a warranty item, might be able to claim on insurance?

pumps can be anything from around a grand upwards to 2.5k and sometimes even more dependant on the make and model.

Someone was recently looking (on here) for a Honda pump and was quoted 3k by the dealership, and around 800.00 second hand.

His car was dropped off by Skoda last night and the bill came to £192 all in !! Let's just say he's quite happy !! I'm guessing his warranty will still cover any future problems this might have caused seeing as they have give it the green light ?

Result!

The wife put petrol in her diesel Seat about 7 years ago, the car just cut out and stopped, called the AA, they towed it to a garage, they drained the tank, filled it up with diesel, £120 later was running fine, no problems at all with it after that!