Another petrol in the diesel tank muppet

Are 'your' company pumps 'Diesel Only' & do you only use the companies pumps, as our local Tesco had petrol in its Diesel tanks From experience you would know within a few miles that you had petrol in the tank NOT a fortnight.

Maybe be difficult to prove unless you only have Diesel in the companies tanks & only fill up there I would speak to a senior manager of the dealership, if you get no joy from the monkeys on service reception

/me sings "It's a kind of magic..."

Petrol will float on top of diesel. For several seconds, until it dissolves.

In message , A C writes

Yep, only 1 pump in the yard and it is diesel.

That's what I'd figured

The company's _very_ strict on completion of mileage and fuel issued records, the bosses have a collective bee in their bonnets over the theoretical 28 mpg target consumption for sprinters. Every drop issued in the past two weeks is recorded. Unfortunately the driver using the van before that was less careful, and it looks like he could be blamed for the damage, grossly unfair in my opinion.

This could go all the way to the top.

In message , Ian Stirling writes

Guess that's a yes, then :-)

(I've just discovered _how_ many times wrong fuelling has been discussed in here!)

=================== I would query the 30 mile 'test drive' if your records can prove it. It seems a bit much but maybe somebody will suggest a plausible explanation. It may have some relevance to the fuel problem.

Cic.

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Nice useful big useful van, I can think of loads of reasons for a 30 mile 'test drive'.

And I bet he refilled with Ultimate from the blue pump...

Ask if the garage have insurance to cover "personal" trips by employees, and that once you have reviewed the GPS tracker data you will be issuing proceedings against them without further warning...

Might make them think a little harder :-p

Petrol is completely miscible with diesel AFAIK. Fill a half-full diesel tank with petrol, get a 50/50 petrol/diesel mix in the tank.

Phil

----------------- Working for a manufacturer of fule as a production operator I can tell you that the specific gravity of Diesel and Petrol isnt that indifferent, could quote figures if I could be botherd to find them! You would get sepparation and the lighter material (petrol) would eventually sit ontop of the heavyer Diesel but this would take a number of days to happen and would certainly remix (as stated above) once you start driving and slosh it all about. I agree they are talking bollox but you should check that the last delivery to your company pump was diesel and not petrol by mistake....!

They did 30 miles in it, that's a gallon or less, right? I can't see them bothering to replace such a small amount, especially since it wouldn't show up on a gauge which was at half full. Also, a gallon in half a tank would not have killed the pump.

Consider this scenario - They used the van for a spares run or whatever, then did the service. (Is this service one which involves a cam belt change?) They f*ck up the cam belt change, and it dies in a mile. They recover it to their yard, and say it's got petrol in. After all, they know you can't prove otherwise, and your boss will blame you.

Not that I'm a suspicious cynical bastard or anything :-))

Steve

Sprinters are chain driven....

But there's every chance that the high pressure pump has failed, which is a common problem on bosch systems. If the pump was getting a bit weak, and they done a fuel filter at the service, the air going through the system after changing it could of been enough to cause the pump to fail quicker (they generally fail at start-up rather than while running).

Best option is to ask for a fuel analysis to be done, to prove if it's gots petrol in it or not.

Okay. So you picked it up and drove it away?

Perfect. That's perfect.

Excellent.

Hahahahahaha...

Yes. When you put petrol into a (modern) diesel car or van, and start it, you start the damage. You may get fifty feet down the road, you won't go for a mile.

What?! 30? Thirty?

Uh-huh. Three miles, maybe, thirty? No way.

Or something else has broken.

There are two issues here for me. One, a thirty mile test drive. Two, a broken van a mile from the dealer. Something doesn't add up.

OK, cancel the belt theory. :-))

I remember when you had to bleed them after changing a filter/ running out of fuel etc. This wouldn't have happened then. That's progress then, yes?

But not by the place doing the servicing. BTW, what mileage has this vehicle covered?

Steve

I bet you can't get that out of them in writing.

Steve

I once had a car taken on a 240 mile "test drive" when in to fix something!!! When I asked why it had done so many miles, they replied that it had been a very difficult fault to find and they had to test drive it for a long time. Yeah... right!

Worse a friend many years ago took his brand new Jag into the local main dealer with a problem on a Friday, and later got a call to say they hadn't finished it and it would have to stay with them over the weekend. Some time later, he got a parking ticket through the post for the Sunday they had it... from Torquay. We are in Staffordshire!!! I wish I'd been there when the Service Manager tried to explain that one away!

So, 30 miles... sounds quite reasonable to me.

Bob Coates

Depends on the concentration of petrol in the tank surely? 100% petrol will obviously cause problems sooner that a 50% mixture say.

Tim

As I understand, modern diesels are plain fussy about the quality of fuel they burn.

Stuff like my 1990 Fiesta diesel, and for that matter my '94 Mondeo TD, burnt anything that would burn! :)

Sorry about the delay in following up, international trip.

Now the dealer says there was "only a wee drop of petrol in it", so the bullshit detector has upped another notch. I bet they didn't expect our fuel issued records to be so good.

The theory that they cocked up the service, perhaps by forgetting to bleed the system after changing the fuel filter, seems favourite. ('Though I thought that was automatic, self bleeding) There's probably a list of excuses above the 'phone and "petrol in it" was the one they picked for us.

They've allegedly replaced the whole fuel system, a pound to a pinch of shit the whole system is still caked with 128,754 miles worth of road dirt when it comes back tomorrow.

Cynical? Moi?