Diesel in Petrol car by mistake !

Sep 30, 2003 12 Replies

One of our pool cars, an 02 plate petrol Citreon C5, has just had approx £5 worth of diesel put in it by mistake, the tank is now full (i.e. full of petrol apart from the £5 worth of diesel).



Should we get the tank drained or will it be ok, I'm a bit worried about contaminating the cat.



Cheers for any advice,



Paul.


No idea about the Cat. but I have used a work van where that has happened before, and it was quite usable,though it did misfire a few times, but soon cleared. Think of it as extra upper cylinder lubricant! Alan.

It's only about a gallon and a half in fourteen gallons. I'd give it a good run for twenty or thirty miles and top it up again with petrol. Like he said, it's like upper cylinder lubricant. The cat would be wrecked by leaded petrol (coats and blocks the micro pores apparently), shouldn't think a bit of diesel would harm it. DaveK.

Wonder how they managed that? A diesel pump nozzle is too big for a recent car's filler.

Urine neutralises diesel fuel. Simply urinate in the tank as soon as possinle.

Get a back street mechanic to flush the fuel tank and change the fuel filter (for one bought from Citroen) if you are really worried. I doubt that £5 of diesel would damage the 1.8 or 2.0 16v C5's.

If you are driving a 2.0 HPI (Direct injection petrol) or the V6 (Complicated) I would consult Citroen.

The HPI engine seems to have suffered fuel pump problems.

Best of luck, better still get a diesel C5, the 2.0 HDI 110 is much nicer to drive than the 1.8.

Ben

That's only dog's urine though. He'll have to squeeze a poodle or two into it.

Si

It will be fine. A couple of gallons of diesel in a tank of ~12 of petrol will not cause any problems.

Tim..

Thanks for all the replies, the MD has decided to get it drained anyway.

It cost £92, I assume they also fitted a new fuel filter, and we didn't even get the old fuel back to use in the lawn mowers !!

Cheers,

Paul.

Had you decided to start the engine, you would have been rewarded with clouds of white smoke worthy of the Hammer House of Horror's special effects department. Driving it on the road would no doubt have brought you swiftly to the attention of the boys in blue. You only need a tiny amount of diesel in petrol to have this effect, so an approximate concentration of 1:10 would have been quite spectacular!

Once the engines hot it's not normally anywhere near that bad.

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