Unleaded petrol mixed with Diesel in a Chrysler 2.5CRD

Ans that's how it should be. The fewer emergencies the better.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Inline ones with seperate lubrication will run on virtually anything that's about viscous enough to pump & can make it through the filter.

Here's a neat link:

Why? Just say it: he's a dick, it makes you feel better.

I know this thread is old but I need some advice.

I just had the same accident. My PT Cruiser 2.2 CRD was almost empty (5-6 liters I guess) and put 3 liters of petrol in my PT Cruiser CRD :(

The guy at the station told me "just fill it up and that'll do" and so I did - added about 50 more liters of Diesel on top and drove back home (about 8km).

Didn't feel any issue so far but reading this thread made me real nervous. Should I really empty the tank? (here in Ireland it is about 200 EUR for that).

Any advice will be appreciated!

Thanks! Javier

I've heard that in the past adding about 10% petrol to diesel was the approved way of preventing diesel from waxing and blocking the fuel lines in sub-zero temparatures.

It always struck me as strange that the fuel lines are not housed in protective sleeves, perhaps with a warm air feed. There must be places that are predictably much colder in winter than Bitain ...!

I can't see how the wrong fuel will cause damage.

I can see that the engine might not run, and with modern fuel management systems it might actively shut down rather than limp along.

Are you a member of AA/RAC? If so, they are able to tell you what ratio of mis-fuelling is acceptable for a given vehicle.

I think your engine is direct injection, and the problem is that the pump pressures are so high that an absence of diesel, which acts as a lubricant for the pump, may cause damage from the first turn of the key. (Indeed, some keyless entry VW's run the lift pump as you approach the vehicle, so you don't even need to turn the key to destroy it.)

The damage may not show at first. If you are unlucky, the hardening of the pump lobes will fail and flake off, eventually blocking the injectors. This means replacing most of the injection system, and your worries about 200 EUR of fuel will seem trivial. If you have run the engine, there's not much point in dumping the tank - you needed to do that before turning the key.

There's every chance that the dilution in your case is so small that you will be OK. You can only keep your fingers crossed...

Chris

In the dim, distant past in the days of mechanical injection, yes. Nowadays you can't do that because of the pump and other damage that would be caused.

Diesel now comes in 'Summer' and 'Winter' versions with anti-waxing agents added.

Modern engines will cope with very low temperature environments successfully without any special measures.

GIYF ;-)

In the past, before winter-mix diesel and common rail fuel pumps that inject fuel at 50,000psi+, relying on the fuel for lubrication...

It's not as if he ran it initially on petrol alone. I would be very surprised indeed if that dilution made any difference to the lubrication. There could presumably be incompatibilities between the petrol and diesel additives but I think this is unlikely. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that tankers regularly carry petrol and diesel in the same tanks. The dilutions when they swap over would be better than in this case, but if there was a chemical incompatibility of additives then the dilution is not really relevent (not until you get to homeopathic dilutions).

I did something similar to an Alfa 156 diesel many years ago.

My incident occurred at the start of a weekend of long drives. I diluted the petrol in 2 stages:

1. refilled after using about half the tank on the first day.
2. drove the car until (nearly) empty and refilled it

(both times with diesel, obviously)

Thus, within a day or two I was back to running on 100% diesel, and it was still running fine when I sold it 90K miles later.

My advice would be if you don't use the car much (why are you running a diesel??) then it may be worth having the tank emptied and the fuel system flushed, especially if it only costs EUR200. Otherwise just do it yourself the way I did.

The engine is a fairly ancient Merc unit - probably survive quite happily on far worse ratios.