How to prevent petrol being put into diesel car by mistake?

You're out of date on the frequent servicing.

My mum's new Astra 1.9 common rail diesel has service intervals of 2 years or 30,000 miles. The petrol is 2 years or 20,000 miles.

The basic diesel was only 500 quid more than the comparable petrol, but she went the next one up to get better performance.

Christian.

Could I have the location of the petrol station where you get a hand job from a nice lady, please?

The message from Bill contains these words:

So what do we use for tailgaters? They're the ones that really get up my nose.

">I am considering purchasing a diesel car due to better MPG. One thing

Even if you do accidentally put petrol in a diesel, as long as it's not too much it'll still run - albeit not very well and it might pink a bit! I put about three gallons of unleaded in a diesel hire car once (only a ten gallon tank), and that ran with it, though it was a little down on power. Still, can't have been too bad because the hire co. didn't notice when they collected it!

In my case, it wasn't that I accidentally went for the petrol pump; I *knew* I wanted diesel but didn't bother to read the description and just went on the colour of the nozzle - green obviously being unleaded, and grey (I thought) being diesel. Actually blue was diesel and grey was super unleaded but I didn't click until I'd added about £12 worth of the stuff... FWIW, it was an Esso garage using this colour scheme.

Darren

P.S.

And yes, I did feel very foolish when I had to explain to the cashier that I now wanted to fill up with diesel after just paying for a few gallons of unleaded!

it was common practice in the haulage industry till about 15 years ago to add petrol to derv in the depths of winter to prevent the fuel waxing and stopping the engines I think we used to use about 10% now largely unnecessary due to additive developments and improved injection systems. Small quantities of derv in petrol do little harm and are in fact sold as redex fuel treatment together with some other additives at a vastly inflated price. I still put a drop in every few months to clean any excess petrol deposits (gum)in the carb . Derek

I've often thought that rectangular nozzles & matching filler holes would fix this. Horizontal for diesel and vertical for petrol. No way could you mix them up. It would be impossible to get, say, a petrol nozzle into a diesel filler cap.

Les

Openj your eyes, use your brain.

No.

Well, they could have - very easily, as another poster has said. Different shaped fillers. All you'd have to do would be to alter your vehicle to match - an insert costing a quid or two would do the job.

Tweezers? to get them back out?

Chris

The message from "Chris Dugan" contains these words:

They'll need more than that if I slam on my brakes.

Instead of this "Boycott the pumps" day I reckon we should lobby for one day a year in which we are allowed to slam our brakes on just as hard and often as we like.

Conor said it was OK to do that, it would *always* be the bloke behinds fault...

The message from "PC Paul" contains these words:

Well, provided they haven't just that second overtaken you and slammed the brakes on as they pull in within your safe distance before you manage to drop back....

No, he was quite clear. It's *always* the car behinds fault, regardless.

I don't necessarily agree...

Yup, worst that happens is that a nasty smelly diseasel dies. :)

One, ignore those people who tell you to use your head. It can be done. Me? Not yet, thankfully diesel filler nozzles don't fit into an unleaded tank filler port... :)

Changing your habit is one trick if you tend to use one petrol station. The second is to put a note on the filler cap and on the dashboard. Watch the VW Diesel advert for inspiration. :)

In message , PC Paul writes

But then there's fault and responsibility.

Many moons ago, a colleague of mine had someone pull out in front of her. She was doing 60mph on a 60mph single carriageway, slammed on when she saw what he was doing, but still ended up rear-ending him.

She also ended up responsible for the insurance claim because he'd managed to get all the way out of the junction and she'd struck his car square on the rear end, as opposed to on the side or at an angle.

I've once been saved from an almost identical situation by the ABS on my car. Unfortunately, my colleague didn't have the luxury.

You have more faith than me in that then.

I've just bought a car with a nice 3.0l V6

It's all relative. Most diesels these days have similar service intervals to petrols, thanks to decent quality modern synthetic oils. Yes, the purchase price thing might apply buying new, comparing list price to list price, but there are so many good deals to be had if you shop around, that that's effectively just s**te, and if you're buying second hand then the difference is a whole lot less marked, especially in the 5-10 year old market.

But we've had about 5 million posts on this recently, so can we *please* not go back there?!!!