Tragedy - Forumite fills Wife's diesel car with Unleaded Petrol

Once had whole family in car at around midnight on Xmas day when I filled up our '09 diesel car with petrol. Mix must have been 95%+ petrol and only realised two miles down the road when the engine started behaving badly. Drove further 1/2 mile to home due to young sleeping family in the back.

Next day I thought time to try out that little syphon widget you get at boat shows. Put it down the filler, but didn't seem to work. I pulled it out and the anti syphon device on the filler removed the widget from the end of the plastic hose. I couldn't pull it out so thought I would push it into the tank....except filler pipe changes shape so got jammed in the filler tube out of reach.

Called AA man at £250. He couldn't get his very thin syphon tube (to bypass anti-syphon device) down to the tank because of the aforementioned stuck widget. He then spent 3 hours remove fuel through the fuel line. Of course we then couldn't fill the tank because of stuck widget, so had to take to garage to get whole fuel tank removed and filler pipe replaced, another £250.

So far done 8000 miles since incident. Only slight problem is that you sometimes need to turn the ignition twice. I put this down to the fuel pump not always creating enough pressure, probably due to slight damage from the incident.

Anyway, moral of this story is don't try and sort it out yourself if you have a modern car. And definitely don't use those boat shows widgets if you want to try.......
 
claymore said:
Cant wait to see how this one unfolds.

Para....?
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Get back on yer sick bed, you auld goat ... t'was hersel' who did the deed. I was 50 miles away. I was heading her way at best speed as I hoped to recover much of the 50 litres of petrol into mine, to which end, I grabbed the home brew kit plastic pipe to siphon it out. Seeing rb_stretch's efforts can only be thankful the petrol sooker-outer got there first.
 
fergie_mac66 said:
+1
most petrol cars have a smaller fill hole Than a diesl pump nozzle will not go into the the car filler pipe for just that reason .petrol not good for the seals in a diesel so best get it out quick and fill up with diesel again it dilutes out.
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Hydrocarbon is hydrocarbon whether diesel or petrol, same effects or not on rubber seals!
Stu
 
I'd worry about your boat tanks, the next time you let yer wife loose on the fuel berth! Will she take revenge?

Sorry I forgot, you don't have fuel berths in Scotland ;) and it's a very long walk to the filling station, back breaking work, in between rain showers, avoiding the clouds of midges, you wouldn't catch me cruising Scotland!

Is that any better for keeping the crowds away? :D
 
snooks said:
I'd worry about your boat tanks, the next time you let yer wife loose on the fuel berth! Will she take revenge?

Sorry I forgot, you don't have fuel berths in Scotland ;) and it's a very long walk to the filling station, back breaking work, in between rain showers, avoiding the clouds of midges, you wouldn't catch me cruising Scotland!

Is that any better for keeping the crowds away? :D
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Dear boy, we sail in Scotland (or not at all) hence the need for diesel is only very occasional. When the captain fires the ebesflasher up, the used deep-fried mars bar oil keeps the midges away. It's a dogs life ....
 
solution

this happens so much I can not understand why the fuel supply companies don't have a standard fitting for fuel . one for diesel so that the filling nozzle wont fit into either, for example square for petrol round for diesel. its almost as if they are wishing it to happen.
 
ParaHandy said:
Dear boy, we sail in Scotland (or not at all) hence the need for diesel is only very occasional. When the captain fires the ebesflasher up, the used deep-fried mars bar oil keeps the midges away. It's a dogs life ....
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Because we used mair diesel keepin oor airses warm than propellin oorsels onywhaurs, Ah wiz wunnerin if there wiz a wee bit tax relief we cuid be claimin?
 
claymore said:
Because we used mair diesel keepin oor airses warm than propellin oorsels onywhaurs, Ah wiz wunnerin if there wiz a wee bit tax relief we cuid be claimin?
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My ane very thoughts. Wus VAT nae fer value added? In oor case can I nae claim the vat back oan ra petrol as clearly there wus nae ony value added? Anything tae stop the wife greeting oer the waste orra oor bawbees, ye know ....
 
pathfinderstu said:
this happens so much I can not understand why the fuel supply companies don't have a standard fitting for fuel . one for diesel so that the filling nozzle wont fit into either, for example square for petrol round for diesel. its almost as if they are wishing it to happen.
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They did just that when unleaded petrol was brought in; you can't fit the nozzle from a "leaded" pump into an unleaded car.

However, that was a new situation, and cars could be built to the required specification without it affecting older vehicles. Also, the potential damage caused by running a car with a catalytic converter on leaded fuel is large; it would require a new converter, as lead poisons the catalyst. New converters ain't cheap, and initially were even more expensive than they are now.

A change so that petrol nozzles wouldn't fit diesel cars and vice-versa would require a vast programme of retro-fitting the changes to existing cars. I doubt it's going to happen anytime soon.
 
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