Petrol into diesel engine

B11gt00e

... my mate just arrived from scotland having had a rough trip due to filling up his father in laws saab with petrol last night. The car is months old, and was near empty, and they drove for 400 metres after the fill... it only dawned on him this morning when it wouldn't start for the trip to the airport what had happened.

What's the next step from here and how much damage has he done?

All productive replies greatly appreciated in advance.

Tigger

400 m isn't too far get the tank drained lines and filter drained and cross fingers i suppose the car probably made it home on the diesel in teh lines pump and filter and then wouldn't run on the petrol in the morning

if he'd gone further it would have been a diaster

could be lucky

MetzgerMeister

Get it towed to a garage, have them empty the fuel tank and check the engine. Sometimes you can be lucky as the 400 meters was probably fuelled by what was left if the pump and petrol may not have gotten into the system. If the car didn't start it would be because the glow plugs can't ignite petrol and this is a good thing due to petrol not getting into the system.

Gael23

If he had realised before he started it, its just a matter of draining the tank. But now the petrol will be in the system so its a whole new problem.

Tigger

ryanf1 wrote: »

If he had realised before he started it, its just a matter of draining the tank. But now the petrol will be in the system so its a whole new problem.

could be ok

B11gt00e

The thing is, the tank was almost fully emtpy, and he loaded in 70 odd litres of petrol on top... I don't think it would have had given the diesel left the time to settle that much at the bottom. He said, that it started on the second attempt at the pump before they drove it... he did notice a strange smell as well

thanks very much for the replies so far. The fella's here and a bit stressed about the repercussions

MetzgerMeister

All that can be done now is the whole thing drained, everything checked, diesel put in and hope for the best.

JabbaTheHut

It *should* be OK. As long as he didn't try to start it too much. The diesel fule acts as a lubricant for the diesel fuel system, whereas petrol will wash any lubricant out, and serious were will occur in the fuel system. DO NOT START THE CAr, although, it probably will not anyway, and tow it to a garage. They'll have to drain the tank completly, and refill it with diesel, and bleed the system through.

Best of luck with it