Unleaded petrol mixed with Diesel in a Chrysler 2.5CRD

"Andy Hewitt" wrote

It's up to him to decide which advice to accept and which to reject. This is Usenet. He asked for an opinion. Mine is to carry on. It's up to him what importance to place on this.

That kind of doesn't look good for diesels. Save on fuel, but repairs are expensive...

Richard

Daniel J. Stern wrote: [snip]

Even though the car is of low value

In message , Johannes writes

Given (1) how often this topic is posted by worried car owners to this and similar newsgroups and (2) that most car owners do not use newsgroups and therefore the postings probably represent the tip of the iceberg, it would seem that inadvertently putting petrol into diesel cars is quite a common problem. In which case, it is more than likely that some drivers of cars they do not own (such as company cars and hire cars) make the same mistake but that, unlike car owners, they keep quiet about it.

If the consequences of doing nothing are as dire as we are told, there must be quite a lot of these company cars and hire cars (and those that have entered the used-car market in the several years since common rail diesels were introduced) that have expensively broken down or are about to do so. If that is so, I am surprised that the ruinous cost of making a simple mistake has not attracted more media attention than I have seen.

Or, more to the point, we'd see industry pressure for a unique diesel nozzle-and-filler-pipe system such that a petrol nozzle wouldn't fit into a diesel vehicle, similar to what was done when unleaded was introduced next to leaded.

Heh - anyone else think the Cruiser is like a short wheelbase hearse, and just as pointless?

It's mostly a matter of care, so far I've swapped regularly between cars needing 4 star, unleaded, super and diesel and never put the wrong fuel in. I'm not immune to making mistakes but I do always double check which nozzle I've got my hand on.

Indeed, although how would you prove later on that a mis-fueled diesel would be the cause of a breakdown?

As with most cars if the timing belt breaks.

In some ways I blame the consumer for the cost of repairing vehicles. They demand greater and greater levels of technology, and yet expect it to perform the same without paying more for the vehicle.

The message from Halmyre contains these words:

Right through!

The message from RichardK contains these words:

By three miles it'd have mixed very thorougly. It'd have mixed very thorougly just from the turbulence of the fuel entering through the tank's neck.

Quite, the university of life has also learned me to double check things. However, mistakes such as these are made, shouldn't happen, completely unacceptable, but they do. Most of the time we're just lucky.

The message from "Tim S Kemp" contains these words:

I laughed myself silly when I first saw one.

There's an old bloke round here somewhere who has a black one with black stickers all over it and shiny silver things all over it. Vile.

I think that's a bit rich. The technology is already out there, the manufacturer who doesn't keep up with technology will just be left out in the cold. Secondly, they increasingly like to keep the consumers off-hand and not give out detailed service information. Like the windscreen sticker they put on: "This car is serviced by so and so Ltd..." - No it isn't!!!

Indeed. The use of front wings makes the front doors curve inside the car, like on an old 1950s Ford Perfect. Most off-putting.

...only to the degree they're told they "need" it by the marketeers.

I always imagine those cars have a ZZ Top cd playing.

-- Stuart

The technology is driven almost exclusively by emission regulations.

Huw