Petrol in a diesel (was running - now won't)

Scotty #

Hi folks, my GF put about €15 worth of petrol in the car yesterday (Audi A4 1.9tdi). She then filled it to the gills with diesel and drove home about 2 miles. Last night she did about 5 miles with no problems and this morning she did about 24 miles with no problems. After the trip this morning she went to start the car again and now it won't start. It's turning fine but that's all it's doing.

Any ideas?

Anan1

It's a bit late now, but my idea would be to have pumped the petrol out before starting the car, let alone driving it. What year is the car? Older diesels can take a bit of petrol, but it can do very expensive damage to newer ones.

Scotty #

2001

Anan1

I suppose at this point a good mechanic's the only way forward. Fingers crossed, but I have to say it doesn't sound good.

Scotty #

ohh, running again! (but for how long?)

On her way to station to top up again.

GTE

From what Ive read up petrol doesn't have the lubricants that diesel does so you could have messed up pumps, injectors, seals. Everything that wouldn't immediately go wrong.

Its semi understandable driving off with a small bit of petrol in the tank but the fact that nearly 30 miles were done without another fill up is worrying.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2737057/A-costly-mistake.html

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/posts/?t=39744

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=113445&highlight=filled+with+petrol+gas

TDI CLUB FAQ
Accidentally filled tank with gasoline - now what?
- If the tank was mostly filled with diesel, and the gasoline is a smaller proportion so that the engine still runs, the best remedy appears to be to buy a container of injector lubricant additive and cetane boost additive, and "overdose" it to protect the injection pump. Fill the tank completely with diesel to dilute the gasoline as much as possible, and keep driving. In the interest of protecting the engine, it would be prudent to avoid high engine speeds or high engine loads until the gasoline is sufficiently diluted.

If the tank has more gasoline than diesel fuel in it, the engine won't run on that mixture. It will be necessary to drain the tank and re-fill it with diesel. If the car was driven to the point of stalling, it will also be necessary to drain the injection pump housing and replace the fuel filter, and re-prime both of these with diesel fuel.

The expense and aggravation caused by all this should be a sufficient reminder to not do it again.

It would appear you had the chance to do the first step in this to limit any problems, but idealy the car should have been filled up at every service station you came across, even if its a 2 euro fill up.

EDIT:
Glad its running and its being filled up. No revving the engine above 2000 rpm.
In keeping with the TDI CLUB FAQ try looking for an STP additive in a large grey bottle. Its a complete diesel treatment. Once the petrol is flushed out sticking that into a full tank and running the car as normal to nearly empty should help.
You may be able to dodge a cannon ball aiming for your credit cards.

Anan1

Scotty # wrote: »

ohh, running again! (but for how long?)

On her way to station to top up again.

I'd stop driving the car straight away and have the tank drained and refilled with diesel.

Nissan doctor

If it was only €15 quids worth then continually top up the tank with diesel and you should be ok.

You can drain the tank and refill but for the small amount put in then watering it down(or dieseling it down, whatever) and you'll be fine, after a couple of full tanks run and diesel flush through it and your away.

bmw535d

keep topping it up with diesal as much as you can,to keep the mixture as diluted as possible,,petrol has no lubrication properties compared to diesal
your car has a high pressure diesal pump that needs lubrication from the diesal.

GTE

bmw535d wrote: »

keep topping it up with diesal as much as you can,to keep the mixture as diluted as possible,,petrol has no lubrication properties compared to diesal
your car has a high pressure diesal pump that needs lubrication from the diesal.

Lets hope hes running the VE TDI. I have a feeling he is.

bazz26

Luckily it is the old 1.9 TDi and not one of the newer common rail diesel engine or your injectors would be shot straight away.

Scotty #

Thanks for all the info folks!

Was speaking to a mechanic and he said that a diesel engine with enough petrol in it will not start unless it's stone cold (hence would not restart this morning) due to how petrol ignites compared to diesel.

He also said that I shouldn't refill the car till it gets to about quarter full as other wise I'm prelonging the petrol mix. By refilling all the time I'm only slightly reducing the ratio each time where as if I run it down and refill it'll clear it out much quicker. That's definitely not the opion expressed here though!

teelinboy

Dont panic, it may be alright, just keeping topping it up very, very regularly to dilute the mix and put in additives to keep the pump etc lubricated as already suggested. Treat the engine like its made of glass until you have flushed a few tankfuls through. I'm not a mechanic but common sense tells you topping up regularily not only dilutes the petrol but also maintains the levels of lubrication. I guess that one is open to debate.

Advice similar to that given here by others worked for me after accidently putting about 8 litres of petrol into my common rail 05 bmw 320d (then filled to the neck with diesel). That was a year ago and I have had no adverse effects since (other than a lot of grey hairs worrying about it!) with over 15,000 miles done since.

Never mind the fact that it was your girlfriend did this - I would never have believed I could have made that mistake - I did, believe me it can happen real easy!

GTE

Scotty # wrote: »

Thanks for all the info folks!

Was speaking to a mechanic and he said that a diesel engine with enough petrol in it will not start unless it's stone cold (hence would not restart this morning) due to how petrol ignites compared to diesel.

He also said that I shouldn't refill the car till it gets to about quarter full as other wise I'm prelonging the petrol mix. By refilling all the time I'm only slightly reducing the ratio each time where as if I run it down and refill it'll clear it out much quicker. That's definitely not the opion expressed here though!

Its going to be a grey area. I would disagree, I would prefer to have the petrol in there for longer but at an ever decreasing ratio then having the full strength put through the engine the whole time.
With that said, I say that because I have the older VE TDI (Im pretty sure like you) and they were or at least seem to be some of the last engines that could take a little bit of petrol and not die. Some say putting some petrol in old school oil burners actually cleans it, however, neither here nor there.

Lets hope its all sorted now.

salad dodger

Apologies OP for hijacking the thread slightly but something similar happened a mate recently. When he realised that he had put petrol( i'm not sure how much ) into his '05 9-3 he topped it up with diesel and then he put some 2-stroke oil in aswell.

The car was running grand for about a week then was parked up for another two weeks. Since running it after being parked up the car has been losing power. It's really noticable when going up steep inclines, when a change down is needed where before it wasn't, but more worryingly it can be running grand during regular driving and all of a sudden lose power for a few seconds before returning to normal...not the kind of thing you want happening in the middle of overtaking an artic'.

Could this power loss be due to the petrol-diesel mix up or could it be more serious? I've him warned to take it to a mechanic asap anyway.

GTE

salad dodger wrote: »

Could this power loss be due to the petrol-diesel mix up or could it be more serious? I've him warned to take it to a mechanic asap anyway.

Probably something serious as a result of the petrol, diesel and two stroke oil (:S) mix up.