oh my god thats petrol

i have put £17-00 pounds worth of petrol in my 1999 td5 then because i was in the middle of nowhere i filled it up with diesel £60.00 worth has got me 80 miles home what should i do next ?

Ideally drain or siphon the stuff out and replace with fresh diesel. It will probably run fine on that mix but the ecu might not like it and also some components of the fuel system may become damaged.
I did the same on a toyota a few years ago and it ran fine but the diesel pump packed up within a couple of months of my mishap, i was told it was because it had been damaged by the petrol, not sure if that would apply to a direct injection system or not???????
Play it safe and siphon it out!!!!!!!

Well, as you have now driven a fair way with petrol in the system,(I presume, with no noticeable effect although the fuel pump may have suffered some damage from lack of lubricant), and you have diluted it considerably with diesel, it sounds like you may well have got away with it. I think you may have been damned lucky,ideally drain it all out and replace with diesel and you may well come out of this unscathed. I'm no expert, but I think the TD5 is probably more tolerant to things like this than say a TDv6, Good Luck anyway.

shouldnt be a problem, i beieve in some cold countries they put a mixture of 10-15% petrol in diesel engines anyway cos it acts as an antifreeeeeze. dont know how it mite effect a newer more complex engine though.

Forget it!
It won't make a blind bit of difference!

Petrol, kerosene, white spirit, and that sort of stuff all mix fine with mineral oils such as derv / diesel, and will do no harm IN MODERATION, OCCASIONALLY. like some in a tank of diesel.

But, best not to make a habit of it!

BUT, if you were like STUCK with no fuel, and there just happened to be a big tank of kerosene 28 second heating oil looking at you, then go for it BUT, you would need to throw in at least TEN PERCENT of cheap clean engine oil into the kero to make it a bit more "oily" and give it some LUBE properties else the neat kero will almost certainly damage the injectors of a TD5, or the injection pump of a real diesel engine.

The absence of lubricating ability is the main reason why neat petrol and kero are bad for diesels. You can get over that by adding a decent amount of clean oil.

CharlesY

should be lucky, that ratio is within the TD5 boundries, as they have NO fuel pump. Petrol cleans the system out, and this is what causes diesel problems. But you should be ok, try not to do too often

So if a TD5 has no fuel pump, how come I spend my life changing them? Am I suffering from mechanic delusions?

jcbdigger1970 said:

should be lucky, that ratio is within the TD5 boundries, as they have NO fuel pump. Petrol cleans the system out, and this is what causes diesel problems. But you should be ok, try not to do too often

Click to expand...

Intresting, how does the fuel get from the tank to the engine? do tell.

Good Grief .....

a fuel INJECTION PUMP a TD5 does not have, but it sure has a great big noisy electric fuel pump (and a two-stage brute at that) submerged in the diesel tank.

It would be death to a fuel injection pump to run it on neat petrol or kerosene for even a few seconds, but if some good lube oil was added, it would last long enough, and in this case the one event of adding what is 25% gasoline to the diesel will do no harm at all.

As a TD5 makes the excess fuel it returns to the tank VERY hot, petrol in the system is a BAD PLAN as it may vaporise and cause mayhem.

CharlesY

Yup...........been there dunnit.
Although it was in the works ford transin van, (which they weren't too impressed about). We work in three man teams and it happened on one of the real hot days we had about a week back. As luck would have it, I noticed as I was filling, stopped, paid (with company fuel card of course), then waited four sweaty hours for the recovery truck to pick us up.
Had to have the tank drained, would have been more prob's if I'd have started the engine before realising.

You're not the first, and won't be the last.
Stu.

i did it to my mums pug 306 diesel.

had about £5 of diesel in it, and i put £20 petrol in it, and drove off. went about 10 miles before i realised why the engine wasnt running proper, so stopped and my mums boyfriend came and towed me home in the disco, via a petrol station where we filled up to the brim with diesel. so at this point it had £25 diesel vs. £20 petrol.

still wouldnt start so i siphoned 35 litres of the fuel mixture out into cans, put another tenner of diesel in, and attached it to the jump leads cos the battery was flat. turned over for about a minute then fired up. hey presto, took her for a spin, filled up with diesel and its been fine ever since.

the 35 litres of diesel/petrol didnt even go to waste cos every time i filled up my 90 with £20 diesel, id pour in a 5 litre can as well.