On our recent road trip to Durham for a Tech-Recipes Summit, we accidently put 4 gallons of diesel in our non-diesel vehicle. Googling the obvious keywords didn’t get us very far, so I thought I’d share our experience in the hopes it would help others. We ended up with no problems, but I’ll just warn you that this information is from a few sources, contains suggestions based on a few experiences, your milage (heh) can and will probably vary. If in doubt, please seek professional help. I’m only writing this in the hopes it can help some folks — I know more about Ghz than MPG, so take the contents of this post with caution. There are many different cars and engines and I bet that their reactions to diesel contamination will be very different. You are responsible for your vehicle and the decision you ultimately make is your own. I recommend towing your car to a mechanic if you have any hesitation. Enough gluteal coverage? Let’s continue.
If you face this situation, your solution will be heavily influenceded by a number of factors. I will describe our condition in detail and that of a friend who also had a similiar problem but with a very different outcome. Our 20 gallon tank was mostly empty (it still had 2-3 gallons of normal gas) and 4 gallons of diesel were added. We did not start the engine at this point, but instead used our phone lifelines.
We called a friend back at a home who completely filled his tank with diesel.. while the car was still running, pretty much the worst case scenario. It stopped running and would no longer start. The only solution at that point was a tow to a mechanic and the removal of the engine and fuel tank and most of the rest of the fuel handling system. Each component had to be cleaned to get the diesel out. My heart sank at the thought of this.
David knew an excellent mechanic and was able to reach him by phone. Given our situation, he told us that if it was his car, he’d fill it up with the highest octane fuel, use gas treatment and fuel injection system cleaner, and drive the diesel out of the system. He warned that the car would not like it, the engine would knock and stutter and generally not want to cooperate. After a few tanks of good gas and gas treatment and engine cleaner, he recommended replacing the fuel filter. If this solution worked, it would be the cheapest.
The only other alternative was towing the car to a mechanic to have the fuel tank drained and possibly cleaned. This was possible because none of the diesel had been pulled toward the engine as a result of starting the engine.
After much contemplation at the gas station, I concluded that there were three potential outcomes:
- Fill the car with good fuel and treatments, say a little prayer and drive the diesel out. It works and the expense is $50 in extra gas cost and fuel treatments.
- Follow the steps in option 1, but with too much diesel in the tank, the engine becomes inoperable. If the good gas/fuel treat plan doesn’t work, expect $2000-3000 in repairs.
- Tow the car immediately to a mechanic and pay $500-1000 in repairs to guarantee no damage to your car.
Option 3 is the safest by far. We opted for #1 and it worked out well in our case. We had 4 gallons of diesel in a 20 gallon tank, a 20% ratio of diesel to gas and about 14 of the 16 gallons of gas were high octane.
If we had topped off the tank with diesel, option 3 would have been our only possibility. Diesel will not run a gas engine. Diesel != gas. With 20% diesel in our tank, it was, as David’s mechanic friend said, like getting a tank full of really bad gas. There are fuel filtration measures in place to protect the engine from some bad fuel, so we lucked out with the ratio we had. 100% diesel certainly will not work. If you have a ratio somewhere between, you have a difficult decision to make. My advice is to consider it carefully and take the safe approach and have your vehicle’s stomach pumped, especially if you are not a gambler at heart and certainly if you have a ratio much higher than 20%. At 20%, our vehicle was reluctant to start and did knock some. It also stopped a few times while driving. David suggested topping off the tank after a few gallons were burned and when we did this, the engine behaved much better.
After returning a thousand miles home and driving around here for a week, we took the vehicle to a dealership for an oil change and asked for their advice regarding the fuel filter. They suggested that if the car was behaving properly not to worry about the fuel filter as this is not a quick replacement.
Long story short, if you are in this situation, take a deep breath and stay calm. If the diesel isn’t in your engine yet, there are solutions. Even if you drive off with diesel, your car can be repaired.
81 comments ↓
My excellent mechanic is the man who deserves all the props. Other than he only officially works on American cars, he is the most amazing mechanic I have ever known.
If you need an honest mechanic in Raleigh:
Robbie’s Truck and Auto Service
502 S West St
Raleigh, NC 27601
(919) 833-2966
Q:
We need to fix him up an official tech-recipes swag packet…
Oh, yeah, he’s the man! I’ll definitely send him some swag.
Why didnt you get a cheap siphon and drain the tank?
We considered siphoning. The main reason I rejected that idea was that we would have ended up with 6 gallons of diesel+gas. I didn’t feel comfortable letting that drain away into the sewage system and we were still at the pump — I don’t think the station owner would have appreciated that anyway. Starting the engine with a high ratio of diesel would have been catastrophic, so we couldn’t move far. The other option was to get several large fuel cans and siphon the carpalm into them, but I couldn’t think of a reasonable way to dispose of those. Being far from home, I couldn’t think of a legitimate use or means of disposal for a 66% diesel, 33% mixture.
Also, David’s mechanic buddy told us that, because of the shape of gas tanks, etc, it would probably be impossible to get much of the diesel out. If we had topped off the tank, siphoning would be a great solution as it would have gotten a lot of the diesel out, probably down to where we were in this situation or a little less. David, how’d he put it? “Have you heard of dilution?” I remember laughing at that.
In the end, diluting the diesel as much as possible worked for us. If siphoning is an option, it would definitely help dilute the bad stuff.
“the fuel filter as this is not a quick replacement”
You never said what was your car? I have a ‘82 BMW e28 518 carburator and changing fuel filters takes less than a minute, as well as air ones.
Seriously, not kidding about me and cars. I’d be more comfortable (and probably more successful) at making a computer out of stuff in our kitchen drawers than replacing a fuel filter. Even if the fuel filter came with the same kind of cartoon-style, word-free, pictograph assembly instructions that come with computers.
I tend to believe our dealer service department. They estimated 2-3h of labor to replace the filter in our Toyota Highlander. That estimate may be high, but they also recommended against it at all. I worked in as a pre-sales engineer for a computer reseller for a spell — if a customer actually needed service and I suggested that they not get it, I’d get more than a wrist slap for sure.
Yeah, that’s what Robbie said.
The first time I learned the magic of dilution was in my surgery rotation.
This guy was shot in his abdomen and had stool in places that stool shouldn’t be. We were washing out his belly when one of the other medical students said, “Why not just give him antibotics?”
And the surgeon said, “The solution to pollution is dilution.”
Classic.
“Why not jsut give him antibiotics?”
Now THAT is scary, to think that a potential medical professional would have that kind of mindset. Just hope that if that med. student is now practicing, that he/she learned a lesson from that. Still not as scary as the 7th year med students that I know of…
Back to the tip, does the same recourse apply to putting gasoline in a diesel car?
Edit: check out Todd’s response below this one for a good description of gas in a diesel engine…
I got to hang out with medical students a lot back when, as David can attest. As a result, I see doctors as a lot more human than I did growing up. I also really, really don’t want to be sick.
Good question about the inverse problem, gasoline in a diesel car. I don’t know, although I suspect it is a similar problem/solution. Low concentrations of gas probably wouldn’t be a big deal (and if a diesel engine ran louder, who could tell?). I doubt that a diesel engine would run on 100% gasoline, so there is probably some magic concentration beyond which bad things would happen. It seems like diesels are a little more tolerant of contaminations in fuels (I know I can’t put used cooking oil in my gas car).
If anyone has had the fun of experiencing gas in diesel, let us know how it turned out.
Gasoline engines simply quit running on diesel, diesel engines explode when run on gas. Diesel fuel is not very flammable, nearly anything can be used as fuel for a diesel engine including cooking oil. Diesel engines compress crappy fuel to the point where it will burn. Gasoline engines dont compress fuel nearly as much because the fuel is so flammable. When gasoine is run in a diesel, the very high compression ratio will cause an explotion resulting in catostrophic engine failure. Diluting the gas is possible but removing all gasoline possible present in the fuel system is very important. If any gasoline made it into the fuel line (you tried to run the engine), I wouldnt risk it, the engine will explode.
Good to know, Todd. Thanks for sharing. Makes sense, now that I think about it.
Hi all you tekeeys lol , well it’s getting close to thanksgiving so the spelling is appropiate. Well gasoilne in a diesel? hmmm. In the old days 1979-1984 diesel fuel was not as refined and the additives were not as good as they are today (sorta like a comadore 64)and used to jell up in the winter months,18 degrees f and below. We used to put one gallon of gas to 19 gallons of diesel to keep it from jelling( haveing jello pudding pops in your fuel tank just didnt work).Now in the warmer weather putting gasoline in a diesel motor could cause much more damage then diesel in a gasoilne motor. if you put gasoline in a diesel and drove the diesel it would ping like spark nock but much more violent. and when starting the diesel motor with gas it would try to start then feel like it is locking up with a sound like sombody threw nuts and bolts in your motor, and if you were lucky enough well unlucky enough to be able to drive it you very well would crack a piston or bend a connecting rod ( sorta like so much spyware running on your pc and and you keep using it that the cpu gets so hot and burns up.New motor anyone? lol. I dont know how I got to this site but it was good reading. thanks.
[…] Disguised itself as IE7 and put diesel fuel in Quinn’s gasoline vehicle. […]
I had a similar situation exactly 4 days ago. My tank(12 gallon capacity) had 3 gallons of regular gas and at a gas station i pumped 3 gallons of diesel into it. Fortunately, i did not start the ignition. When i took my car to the service guys, they said i am OK as long as i havenot started my ignition. So they drained my gas tank and refuelled entire tank with grade 91 gas. This is required to dilute all remaning diesel to the extent possible.
My car did not complain so far and will be keeping a watch on the mileage. This cost me $100 and will accept this, if my car doesnot complain.
So, we just found out one of our employees, who is 2 hours away, just filled our diesel van with gas. A mechanic we talked with said up to 10% gas would not be horrible, but he put in about 20 gallons. We’re still working on it . . . .
Heidi, we were definitely fortunate to get only a few gallons into our tank and that diesel into our gas car sounds better than your gas into diesel. Thanks to everyone who has contributed their experiences here. I didn’t find much when I Googled for it during our experience, so I hope all of this information helps other folks. Good luck, Heidi!
So, we just found out one of our employees, who is 2 hours away, just filled our diesel van with gas. A mechanic we talked with said up to 10% gas would not be horrible, but he put in about 20 gallons. We’re still working on it . . . .
no luck with siphoning. We are going to tow to a mechanic in the morning.
I found this site the other day when my husband called to tell me he had just put about 5 gal of gas in our F250 diesel pick up. he was in a hurry and had about a 1/4 of fuel so he just put $10.00 in it
he stoped and pulled the reciept out of his pocket and sure enough that is what he did. He called his stepdad who has always driven a diesel and was told that with that small of an amount he could fill it with diesel and just refuel every few gallans and it should be fine.
(also we have not been driving much latly)anyway he had driven about 20 miles and the truck started acting up he thought that it was a fuel promblem that we had had once before as we were talking I asked is it doing the same thing? at that point he said “maybe I put gas in it” it took me a moment to recall that he was in the truck and gas was not okay
that is what we did, he put 16 gal of diesel (topped it off) in it and we have driven it everyday for the last 4 days everyday putting more diesel in it and it seems to be fine. We were warned that it would be possible for the truck to do funny things like try and keep running after you turn it off etc. we had none of that.
Also, we were told that if you had more than 20% gas in the diesel you would not want to try and run it out.
The truck is running fine, and it has since he filled it with diesel. Thanks for having this site it was the only thing I could find.
BTW the truck did not explode
I just bought a 2 year old car this weekend… and it drove like a dream all during the test drive. On the way home, i started noticing a lag in acceleration, and then in the morning my car didn’t start. So much for an almost brand new car off the lot! Turns out some guy AT THE DEALER filled up my tank with diesel after my test drive. Go figure… now I am fighting with them to replace all the parts, rather than just cleaning them. I don’t want to worry the entire time I have this car that the engine will not work as efficiently as it should. Do you guys think I am overreacting here?
Oh, no.. that’s terrible. Heather, it depends on how much diesel fuel ended up in the tank. If it was just a little (2 gallons or less), it probably isn’t a big deal. However, since your car wouldn’t start the next morning, I suspect it was more than just a little diesel. Since they were at fault, it seems like they need to make it right. Since I can’t tell you what is right, you might feel better if you found a 3rd party, a mechanic you could trust to tell you what they would do if they were in your situation. Good luck!
Well here’s a good one. My husband bought me a new 2007 X Unlimited Jeep. I had it exactly 7 days and 30 minutes before I had to be at a Christmas party, it stopped dead in the middle of an intersection. It would not do anything. I called my husband, he called a toll truck and took it to the dealership. They tried for 3 days to figure out what was wrong. Today, they called and said, “someone put diesel in your gas tank!”. Needless to say I was upset. They said, they will drain the gas tank and flush the engine and that it will be just fine. Cost $500 We think , my husband must have put diesel in it by mistake or we got ahold of a station that mistakenly put diesel in the wrong holding tank. Who knows. Considering diesel pumps are marked in green and have a spring around the spout.
I thought the Nozzle on a Diesel Pump was larger so it could not fit into a Gas burning Auto Mobile. Did they stop this practice? If so, that was a bad Idea.
I found all the comments both helpful and interesting. We just gave our 27 yr old daughter our 2002 Honda Civic in excellent shape with 20,000 miles on it. She just called hysterically because it died after she had just filled it with gas. She went to a gas station she had never been to and thinks she put diesel in the tank instead of regular gasoline. She is awaiting AAA and the police as she is stuck on a major thoroughfare. She works in Burbank California and was heading home to Santa Clarita. After reading all of the above, I asked her how much Diesel and she said that the gauge was on “E”, so it looks like the whole tank. It looks like this will cost a bundle. Anyone out there know good mechanics in the area? We have no clue as we live on the East coast. Thanks!
Hi,
I have done a few insurance assessments on diesel vehicles that were filled with petrol (you guys call it gas). The damage is caused because petrol does not have any lubricant in it, which quickly causes damage (within 5 or 6 km the engine will act up)to the moving parts in the injectors and high pressure pumps etc.
While the vehicles are under warranty it is very expensive to repair them, as understandably the vehicle agents will only use new original parts, so that their warranty can be honoured. However they do automatically assume that the parts in the fuel system are damaged beyond further use and replace all of them.
The cost to repair a BMW and Mercedes is around R40,000 i.e. about $5,700 and a jeep cherokee is R60,000 i.e. about $8,500. No discounts!!!! (We’re robbed badly here in South Af.)
In older cars it might be possible to re-use the parts after inspection, or else to use alternative parts, at a fraction of the cost.
Oh yes, I forgot to add, It’s an insurance issue here because we are not allowed to fill our own vehicles and have to rely on pump attendants employed by the filling station. (job preservation and all that). Also makes fuel much more expensive.
I found these discussion very useful. It saved my vehicle today. My wife accidentaly filled Diesel in 2004 Sienna. We have only 25K miles on the minivan. There were about 3 gallons of regular gas in the tank when she filled in about 4.5 gallon of Diesel. She drove about 1.5 Km smoothly before vehicle started choking. She pulled over and parked the car in nearby parking lot. Later we drained about 1 gallon diesel out of the van and filled up almost 14 gallons of 91 octane gas. The van did not started or started but stopped in two seconds. After trying for about 10 times and giving the race all of the diesel in the engine area got burnned out and new mixed (diesel + gas) getting in the engine. Finally the engine started , I left the engine running for about 1/2 hours before driving. It drove almost same as before.
We were on vacation in Carlsbad,CA. We pulled up to a Chevron station in Carlsbad and filled up our tank, with we thought was unleaded gas. I STARTED THE ENGINE, drove away and immediately my car (Nissan) seemed to be “choking”. We went back to Chevron. The cashier told us we pumped diesel and that it happens all the time at that station. I had my car towed and the tow company said they get plenty of business from people due to this problem. We had to get home but had to an extra day. We went to a Nissan dealer paid $400 to get the diesel gas out and lines cleaned. I have called, written, emailed, sent certified mail to Chevron to help us with this expense. We get the runaround!! Their diesel pump is right next to the unleaded gas on the same line!!! BEWARE OF THE CHEVRON IN CARLSBAD. A driver happened to pull up while we were speaking to the attendant and told us that it had just happened to his mother. He told us to add a “cleaner” but we had filled up…we had to have it repaired correctly. This occurred in August ‘06 and I did not find anything on the website about this problem until I came across your webite. Has anyone else written about this gas station? (And yes, the diesel pump fits!)
My daughter who is 16 and just got her car, filled her car with diesel accidently… I forgot to give her the 411 about gas I guess… Her car had about 1/4 tank in it and she filled it up with Diesel. Luckily that was only minutes from our house, but she did drive it for about 5 min before it pooped out, around the corner from our house. It didn’t want to go for sure… I moved it from where she parked it to our house around the block before I knew that she put diesel in it… she just thought the car crapped out or something… so, tomorrow I am going to call the towing company and have them take the car in to be drained and cleaned… She’s only had the car for 2 weeks…
Yep, just put diesel in the car. Boy do I feel obtuse. I ran back to the service station just behind the gas station. Fortunately the service attendants near the gas station where I fueled checked the car and said it had a flush tap (luckily I live walking distance). All they will need to do is flush the fuel, change the filters and pump a bit of gas to get the cars started, about a $150-200 dollars for repairs…I cried like a baby, not about the money, last job on the car has cost $800; $150 was nothing compared to that. I cried because felt so lost and mortified. My friend said I feel bad now…but that we’ll look back at the incident and make fun of it (or rather make fun of me) in the future. I found this website doing a search on the damages the car could sustain. I’m happy I’m not the only one out there that has made the same mistake. Reading all your comments has helped me come down a bit and stop the weeping. I guess being a new driver is a scary thing. Your website has been really helpful to me. I’m in my early twenties, have live alone for many years, and I’m currently overseas. For parents out there be good to your kids when they make this kind of mistakes. I’m suffering right now and have no one to cry and hold on to. Make your kids feel comfortable, I really wish my mom was here.
I have a case where my client was driving his 2003 Chevy Silverado 3500 Diesel truck and pulling a large RV trailer. He stopped at a gas station and put in about 26 gallons of diesel fuel [per the receipt]. He got back on the highway and traveled about 46 miles before his engine died. His truck was towed to a Chevrolet dealership where he was told that his pistons and cylinders were burned up, likely due to gasoline in his diesel fuel. The gas station vehemently denies that its diesel fuel was tainted with gasoline. My client had traveled at least 1800 miles up until this incident without any mechanical problems. Does anyone have any insight into this issue? It is the reverse of the original problem.
thanks first and foremost to qmchenry and then of course all of your comments.
i will let you know what happens in my case: early this morning because i found my tank out of gas (i thought i had 1/4 of a tank and was leaving for work early to fill up the tank), i did some quick thinking and realized i had gas in my shed for my lawn mower. the plastc fuel container i found, i was told, had gas in it: i put approx 1 gal in it and drove to the nearest station to place more gas in it(approx 1 mile). it sputtered as i entered the station. i only put 2.5 gal of additional gas in it and began leaving the station. but it wasnt having it and quickly stopped (i learned later that afternoon that there were 2 plastic containers of fuel in my shed; i only saw the one that, yep you guessed it, had diesel in it). i had it towed to the dealership. thus far, no work has been done on it; and since i do not have $500.00, i am going to take option #1 and continue to pray. i will also consult a few more mechanics prior to making this grueling decision. but thanks for all of your input. hopefully the following suggestions will help as well:
1. take the time to smell: gasoline is much more potent smelling.
2. label your gas cans in your shed.
3. keep your tank at 1/4 tank so you dont run into the “out of gas” dilema and make crazy mistakes like this.
4. last, i did NOT learn today that i have cancer or receive some other tragic news. today, i learned that we need to slow down, think, be willing to arrive to our destination late… and call someone we know who truly is having a tragic day and need a shoulder.
yes, i am upset with myself but i have all of you to thanks for this input - Teresa
well i feel like a idiot i filled my work truck brand new.first fill ever i was not famiarly with the the pumps was told by other driver that the digital pump system would only let me put diesel in but they gave me wrong chip and i did not even look at the label on the pump because where i fill up is all diesel for the last ten years and just was use to it this truck 220000 dollars. i started pumping the gas in it 12 gallons and realized it was gas and not diesel fuel this is a cement mixer truck and i felt sick all day and night and couldnt wait to talk to my boss who just dropped me off to pick up my new truck luckyfor me i did not start the engine and no gas got in the fuel line it was about 12 gallons gas and 30 gallons diesel we drained it and changed the fuel filter and it runs perfect still can not belive how stupid i was
I was tuning my engine (302 GT-40 stroked to a 347) in my 2000 F-150, popping a bit over 210 psi per cylinder. I ran to the gas station and filled up a 5 gallon gas can with super premium unleaded, added octane booster and lead addative to the tank and then added the gas(diesel!!!!! The funny thing is that the gas station doesn’t even sell diesel. But sure enough, there was a bit left in the can and it was a blueish greenish color. Man, my truck didn’t like it as I drove it to a gas station to fill up the rest of the way. 20 gallons of premium, three bottles of octane booster and lead addative, and the thing is still pinging at anything over 1/3 throtle. I am down to less than a quarter tank left so hopefully when I fill back up, the problem will be solved. Glad to know there are other people out there with simular issues!! Keep your heads high and your feet out of the pedal to mimimize pre-detonation as it will all come out in the wash/refil!
Theresa,
Having both diesel and gasoline equipment at my farm, I have worried about getting the two fuels confused. I quickly learned from a neighbor that gasoline should always be in red or orange containers and diesel fuel in yellow containers. You can find the yellow in most places that sell fuel containers. I have never had a problem after using the different colors. My daughter had a slight problem when she ran out of gas and her mother came to the rescue with a can of my chain saw gas and oil mixture. The car smoked a bit, but I guess nothing bad ever came of that. I actually had the chain saw gas in a red container and the mower gas with no oil in it in an orange container, but I guess my wife didn’t realize that. The gas with oil in it has a much darker appearance, by the way.
Rick
My brother put in about six gallons of gasoline in my turbo passat diesel. I drained it out and filled up the tank with kerosine (more refined diesel). Started up rough but ran and after five minutes was fine.
Can someone explain why it would be neccessary to clean/replace fuel lines and filters if diesel were put into a gasoline car? I would think simply draining it as much as possible and diluting it with gasoline would be good enough.
How would diesel harm the fuel lines or clog the fuel filter of a gasoline engine?
I madevery stupid mistake today to put half tank of diesel in to my just brought second hand Toyota05I started the engineer and only run about 5 min , the car was terriably choking and then stopped. Good thing is I was lucky enough to pull over in the sideway not at the dead end intersection. I was told by my friend , the cost to repair is at least $1000. so I just treat them as a lose from stock market otherwise I will go crazy…
Thanks a lot for all yr guys input and make me feel not that stupid and learn a lot of infomtion and experience.
hi..1
its a nice experience…
..if im you,i will help those people which realy need a help…i mean those people that in the in dangerouse…
cause of accident…
Well, after reading these comments I feel alot better about my situation. I am boring my moms explorer for the weekend. My friend and I decided this morning we would drive 2 hours to go shopping. I run out of gas, go to the gas station and put 7 gallons of diesel in it! I am freaking out calling dealerships and they are saying tow it. Finally, I talk to this sweet old man and he said fill the rest with gas and I made it home. Is everything gonna be okay from here on out?
[…] So our car runs on diesel, but only if you put in mostly gasoline. Post a comment | Trackback URI […]
am really glad i came across this thread. last evening, i put 6 gallons of seemingly bad gas in my suburban. the vehicle was on empty when i put the gas in and i drove about 15 miles on it when all of the problems (sputtering,dying,etc..) began, so i’m down to about 5 gallons left in it. rather than taking it to my mechanic, i believe i will buy the fuel cleaner and fill it up with the high octane stuff. really hoping that does the trick, since i have a 42 gallon tank, i’m only looking at about 12% bad fuel in the system. it should be pretty easy to get it diluted.
I’m so glad to find this website. On mothers day I put diesel into my friends truck. It was on empty and I put approximately 9 gallons in it. We were over a hundred miles from home!!!!! We tried siphoning it but could not get a hose into the tank!! Truck would not start so I had it towed to her house and 2 days later to the dealership. Still waiting to hear the verdict on $cost and repairs but they seem to think emptying tank and flushing the fuel lines would work. I’m paying for my mistake and was prepared to essentially buy her a new truck. So glad it doesn’t look that way now. Guess I cannot be trusted to pump any kind of gas.
I learned that if the pump handle is green it is not gasoline! Also, if it is too big, it’s not gasoline! I’m not blonde, I swear. I don’t normally do stupid stuff, but this was definately not smart!!
I am thrilled to find this website, but my problem is on a tad smaller scale than an automobile. Nevertheless, I’m hoping that all you savvy engine techs can help me out! I have a chainsaw that was relatively new that my brother-in-law borrowed….unaware that a chain saw has to have a gas/oil fuel. He filled it with regular gas. Is there hope, or is this chainsaw pretty much history? I appreciate any and all input!
I was hard at work when my wife continually tried reaching me on the cell. Finally got time to answer and received the bad news that she had put diesel into our Rav4. She did want to start because her friend told her not to run the car and to call the dealership. I asked how much she pumped - are you ready for this? - it was only $0.20 or $0.30 worth! (She’s not blonde either but…) So I told her since she was nearly on empty (I had drove the Rav4 the night before and knew it was near empty) that she should just fill it up with Regular and be on her way. She said she would just let me fill it up and I told her she had better do it while she was there and BEFORE she drove it with diesel in the tank - even though at today’s prices that was maybe about 5-6 drops of gas! She even told me that she was wondering why the nozzel didn’t fit into the tank - HINT HINT HINT! I’ll have to drive it to see if there is any lingering effect, but I doubt enough got in there to make any difference (Rav4 has about 14 gallon tank and she only got 20 to 30 CENTS worth). Guess we were lucky she caught it before any true damage was done. Came across this site while being interested in what would have happened if…..
I am so happy to have found this site and see I am not alone in this easy mistake. I did the same thing a few nights ago, but I drove it not knowing that I shouldnt have for about 5 mins before my car stopped in the intersection. Luckily someone helped me to move my car to the side of the road and my roadside asstistance came and towed it to the dealer. I almost passed out when I was told it was going to cost over almost $1000!!!I guess I will have to suck this up to a learning experience.
My wife drives an 04 Jag XK8. She only use premium gas and only buys at Costco and Safeway in California. Neither Safeway nor Costco sell Diesel in our area and yet, when her car quit the dealor says that there is diesel fuel contamination. The car would run for a while and then die. It would restart and go alittle longer(several miles). The dealor put many miles on the car road testing and it would be OK for awhile and then quit. Does anyone have an asnswer for us. Thanks.
I drive a vw diesel jetta. Never did this before, but filled it with gasoline this AM, car is at mechanic for weekend, will find out later…I drove it for awhile not realizing the problem, then if felt like a fuel problem, had it towed. Gas station I went to is not one of my regulars, the pump had mutiple selections including diesel. This time Diesel was:YELLOW, I usually get diesel at two or three stations, all self pump and all are GREEN. Bad mistake!
First I would like to know how you get the diesel pump into your gas car the diesel pumps “ends” are larger than the gas pumps that is what baffels me the most.
I put 3 gallons diesel into my new jeep! drove for a mile. engine started to go rough so I pulled over and just realized what I did! my question is should i take it to a mechanic or the dealership??
My wife mistakenly added about 4 gallons of diesel to the 5 gallons of gas remaining in the tank of our Honda Element. She wondered why the nozzle wouldn’t go into the filler hole, so she didn’t fill up all the way. She made it home OK, but she couldn’t get it started the next day. It didn’t take long to figure out what happened, and we decided to remedy the situation ourselves instead of following any of the $600-$1000 estimates we got to flush the tank and lines, replace the iridium plugs and fuel filter (part of the in-tank fuel pump), and inspect the injectors. I uncoupled a quick disconnect in the fuel line just before the fuel rail at the front of the engine, stuck on a 6 foot plastic hose leading to a large container on the floor, and turned the key to the “run” position until the fuel pump stopped (about 3 seconds.) After the initial surge, gravity took over, and the tank was drained as dry as possible after about 5 hours. While this was going on, I cleaned the carbon off of the spark plugs and filled gas cans with 14 gallons of premium gas, and bought a bottle of Techron fuel system treatment. When the tank was empty, we poured in the Techron and premium gas, got the fuel pump going again to flush the last of the gas/diesel mix out of the fuel line, and reconnected the fuel line. After 4 tries to start the engine and 10-15 seconds of rough idling, the car ran fine. I’ll check the plugs again after a couple more tanks of gas.
Our local Turkey Hill had diesel fuel put into the unleaded regular underground tank. Up to 50 cars filled up at the pump before the mistake was discovered. My daughter’s van started jerking a couple of miles away and the engine began to smoke. The tank was almost completely empty when she fueled up. Turkey Hill will pay to have the van towed and repaired, but what a nightmare!
I loaned my ‘87 bmw 320I to a friend. he said that he put 20 euros worth of diesel in my almost empty gas tank. a local mechanic claims that it’ll cost 1300. euros to fix. i am relieved after reading all these reports. looks like this misinformed mechanic is trying to make an extra euro. maybe, he is under the impression that i have a diesel engine. especially since he has said that my car in a ticking time bomb. i’ll know more when i return to italia next week. grazie mille for all your experinces. CIAO
i put 2 gallons of diesel in my 2005 ion saturn and i need help please give some kind of guidence after i put the wrong gas in i put regular gas in it and it still did not turn over
Recently I went to a Kangaroo station, put the hose in my new Sienna and pushed 87octane and filled up to the tune of $55. Drove about 1/8 mile and the car died. To make a long story short it was diesel and cost over $700 to fix. I mistakenly used the diesel hose but did not push the diesel button which was on the same pump. Should the station be held responsible. I’ve heard from friends that the hose should not have fit in my car and if I pushed 87 diesel fuel should not have come out.
@GWiz, it was at a Kangaroo station that this happened to us, too. My understanding is that the nozzle for a diesel pump should not fit into a gasoline car’s tank port. I’ve never tested this in the real world. It does seem that if you push a gasoline octane solution and try to start pumping diesel, a well-made system would not pump and provide some feedback that something has gone amok. Whether or not the gas station can be held accountable, I don’t know. It certainly wouldn’t take much time to contact them with a complaint through their website (Google for “Kangaroo gas”). However, the effort expended to follow through in small claims court might be more than you are willing to pursue. If the Kangaroo stations in particular have incorrect diesel nozzles, it would definitely be in their best interest to change them, so providing feedback to them at the corporate level may help prevent others from going through the same experience.
I accidentally put 10L of gas into a rented Passat diesel engine in Paris. We were in a hurry and the tank was nearly empty . I started knocking at idle after 2 blocks of driving in the traffic. I immediatelly pulled the car on the side. I went back to the gas station to realise the green nozzle is preminum unleaded gas (green is diesel in Canada). I was recommended to put fuel cleaner and add diesel and should be fine. Added 10L of diesel with cleaner with 2 trip of jerrycan (now about 60% diesel, 40% gas mixture in the tank): took a while to restart, but engine ran suffissently with less power so I can drive back to the station. Then topped it with another 50L of diesel. Drove another 300km with no problem. Have been lucky not to top off with gas the first time!! Moral: Always be carefull when changing contries, not same color and nozzle sizes!!!.
I accidentally filled a three fourths empty gas tank with diesel in Atlanta Ga. and within ten miles or so the car overheated so badly I thought I had perhaps blown a head gasket or something. The car was a ford fiesta which at the time was only a few years old. It would drive five or ten miles and then slowly stall out. I had no idea what the problem was and since it was late on a Friday evening I had little hope of finding a garage open, so I would let the engine cool for half an hour or so and it would restart and go another ten miles or so. It never did spark knock or rattle, if it had I might have figured the problem out. After spending about five hours moving maybe a hundred miles or less I noticed it was using far more fuel than it should have so I stopped to refuel because I was about to go onto a long stretch of isolated highway. When I raised the hood to check the oil I smelled diesel fuel pretty strong, so I opened the fuel tank and smelled it, and sure enough, it was clearly diesel fuel I was smelling. I knew immediately what I had done. So I refilled the tank, which was then about three fourths empty, with gasoline, and got back on the interstate. Within five miles or so it began running a little better, but it was smoking heavily and even blowing a few sparks out the tailpipe. I just kept going and by the time I reached home (about 150 miles) it had pretty much cleared up and was running more or less normal. I kept that little car for another two years and it never gave me any other problems. At one point I got on a stretch of highway just south of Chattanooga that had almost NO shoulder, and when the thing decided to stop I put the passenger side of the car against the guardrail and the drivers side was still slightly over the white line marking the edge of the highway. You haven’t lived until you sit trapped in a situation like that with rush hour tractor trailer trucks thundering past at 70 miles an hour almost bumper to bumper less than a foot away from your door! Too close to the wall to even climb out the window. My wife was with me, we’re very lucky to be alive.
i filled up my pontiac grand prix with 6 gallons of diesel fuel…it already had a half tank of gasoline. I drove about 20 miles and then it started acting up. I continued on home about another 5 more miles and read this site (it was really helpful by the way). I siphoned the gas/diesel mixture and filled it up with a half tank of gasoline. It started right up and has been running fine since.
Happy New year to my girl’s brother LOL. So my girlfriend calls today and tells me that her little brother was going downtown/Chicago on Sunday morning to exchange gifts from Christmas when he notice that his 2006 Toyota Corolla’s gasoline gage was on empty. He stopped in a gas station, got some gas and left with out realizing that he had just pumped 14 gallons of DIESEL in to his little car. Oh man oh man you guess it right, after 2.2 miles the vehicle started choking living him, friends and x-mas gifts in the emergency shoulder of I290.
He’s dad will take his car to the mechanic today, my guess is that his GRAND TOTAL will come out to $750.00.
PS: If the nozzle does not fit into the the gas tank of your car, GUESS WHAT???? IS DIESEL!!! HINT HINT!!
So In the state of NEW Jersey, by law, you aren’t allowed to pump your own gas. I have a 2002 Toyota Corolla, and although I am from Pennsylvania, was driving in jersey, and realized i was on E, so i pulled into a smaller gas station, but the only one on the road. I asked the gas attendent for 20$ on regular and than drove to my destination about 2 miles down the road to watch the NFL playoff game. When I got out and started my car, I started shaking and barely got out of the parking spot, and than stalled out completely….and than wouldn;t start again….
I spent 70 bucks to tow the car to my mechanic in PA, and I cannot find the receipt for the gas….so I can’t tell if he filled it with diesel, or if it could just be bad gas….
I dont understand why a person working at a gas station would fill my car with diesel, especially if it doesn’t nozzle wouldnt fit.
not sure if theres anyway to make them pay for it.
It’s not recommended to burn off more than 1/4 of 1% of disel in a gasoline engine which is 1:400 ratio. Sounds like you got lucky. I want to know how people are getting the diesel nozzles to fit in to the fill pipe on unleaded cars, the nozzle is supposed to be larger on diesel pumps so people don’t do this.
It’s not recommended to burn off more than 1/4 of 1% of disel in a gasoline engine which is 1:400 ratio. Sounds like you got lucky. I want to know how people are getting the diesel nozzles to fit in to the fill pipe on unleaded cars, the nozzle is supposed to be larger on diesel pumps so people don’t do this. Gasoline burns between 100-437°F and diesel burns between 330-650°F, so you got those heavier components in there that won’t want to ignite in a gas engine. One thing you could do in this situation is to siphon off the gas and return it to the underground tank. You would be getting most of the gas out of your car that way, then fill it up with fresh gas and the treatment the mechanic recommended. The 4 gallons of diesel with the 2-3 gallons of reg gas could be dumped in the diesel storage tank if there is over 1200 gallons (by the 1:400 ratio), it should not be noticed or affect any other vehicles. It could also be dumped into a tank with 1600 or more gallons of gas. Most stations get 4000 gallon or more shipments of gas at at time.
Intersting story. You said you did this at a gas station. I was wondering how you managed this, as no automobile powered by gas since the early 1970’s, has a fill hole large enough, to put diesle in? The diesle pump is about 3 times the diameter of an unleaded gas pump nozzel, and without a funnel or pouring out of a can it aint going to happen by accident.
Two cases mentioned here happened at Kangaroo gas stations and several others swear that the nozzle fit in their gas tank. I realize that the nozzles on diesel pumps are supposed to be larger to prevent this problem, but I believe that many of the occurrences described here in the comments were cases where the diesel nozzle was the incorrect, narrow size. The diesel nozzles around here are only 50% larger, give or take, than their gasoline cousins. Ultimately, it’s not enough to trust the gas station to have the correct nozzle at the pump. It’s always worth a few seconds to double check that you’re getting the right juice.
Hey guys i recently put about 40 bucks in my ml 320 benz. Once i got around the coner its started to act up. I had like a quater tank when i put the 40 deisel fuel in. I was wondering should i take it to the dealer or just add 91 octain to it and let it burn out.Which one would you do.
Rick,
That sounds like a lot of diesel (well, not as much as it would have been a few years ago, but..). I believe that our luck in working this out ourselves was that we had a relatively small amount of diesel in our tank, about 4 gallons. This gave us a ratio of about 20% diesel in our tank. If you have a much higher ratio (75% if you filled your tank, although if you can add gas to it, it must not be full). It worked out well for us with 25% diesel. I don’t think it would have gone as well at 50%, probably costing more in repairs than going in right away. Short answer, if I had as much diesel in my car as it sounds like you do, I’d go to a mechanic. Good luck!
Quinn
I’ve seen both the large and small nozzles on diesel pumps (the smaller ones are more appropriate for some construction and landscaping equipment). The small ones DEFINITELY fit into a car/truck gas tank. Be careful!
This frikkin’ thread is amazing! It goes on … and on … and on … and on … and on. To the owner of this blog, Thanks! I’m sooooo glad I’m not the ONLY one who makes this kind of mistake.
Mine is a GAS INTO DIESEL STORY so read on if that’s your problem. First, To those who say, “How could this have happened when the nozzle is so much bigger/smaller that you’d have to be an idiot to make this mistake” … I say … “Have some compassion”. It *IS* possible to make this mistake and even *YOU* could make the mistake, given a any set of possible circumstances where you are distracted enough, ie: rushing, work stress, rental car, new car, friends car, whatever…) pumping gas is one of those duties we all partake in …most often in autopilot mode. I would surmise most of us are thinking of other things while we pump. The Chevron’s and GMs of the world COULD HAVE made it IMPOSSIBLE long ago, and if not them, a trade standards body or government process could have. With the amount of software/hardware put into vehicles today, why wasn’t this preventative included (referencing a previous poster’s comment). If the pump nozzle was square and the hole was round …. OK … but (metaphorically speaking), you can fit a PORTION of the male nozzle into the female receptacle today. In the real world, “she” can still get pregnant! Anyway … My Story: I’ve been in France since last summer. I’ve been “leasing” a car from Hertz, in other words, I’ve been renting long term, but at a very reduced rate because of my long term stay. Since they don’t have “terms” longer than 30 days, I have to re-up the contract every 30 days, which in some cases, lets me keep the car I have … and in other cases … I have to swap it out for another, usually because the car I have has reached the end of Hertz’ lease with the manufacturer. Long story short, I went from a gas rental to a diesel rental. They were CLEAR with me about that. I said, “yeah, yeah … got it” … and drove off. First gas stop: While enjoying a fine spring day in France … le birds chirping …and le bees buzzing … I headed out for a drive and thought I should top off. Whoda known I wasn’t FOCUSED on the putting the right nozzle into the receptacle! In Europe, there isn’t “stupid-proofing” at the pump because of there are so many diesel cars in operation. So … WTF … I put gasoline into a diesel. DOHHHHHH! Some might say, “It’s a rental” …. and … I certainly could play dumb tourist saying, “Ohhhh, I didn’t know why the car blew up, Mr. Hertz … it just blew up while I was driving down the highway”. Well, that’s not me. So, I had 3/4 tank and topped off with with 17 liters of gasoline. I don’t know what the ratio is but I was out in the middle of nowhere, so I decided to drive the 15 kilometers home. The car ran fine. When I got home, I called Hertz’ toll-free assistance. The operator said he needed to send a mechanic to pick up the car and it would cost me 300 Euro. Cheap, given previous accounts. But, given the Euro/Dollar difference right now, I asked if I could get the problem fixed myself. That’s where I’m at right now … I will get back to you to let you know what happened, so those of you traveling abroad, know what to do if it happens to you.
Happened to me last night at a chevron in Glendale, CA. That’s about 1 hour away from home. I put about 3.5 gallons of diesel in my unleaded fuel tank. My vehicle is a new Toyota Sequia which I absolutely love, best car I’ve ever had. Anyway I realized it and stopped pumping any more diesel & I had a tow truck take it to the nearest Toyota dealership. I had to walk to a hotel with my 3 kids and I hardly got any sleep, still in disbelief of what an idiotic thing I had done! My husband went to pick us up this morning and I’m so tired, my car is so far away. I feel stranded without my wheels. I have to have somebody drive me there tomorrow so I can be there when the service station opens at 7 am. I still don’t know what will happen to my car. I feel like for the first time in my life I actually have a terrific car and did something so stupid to possibly mess it up. I am banking on the fact that I did not drive the car after the mishap. We’ll see. Feel like such a bonehead. I was really tired last night when it happened but there was something screwy about the pump. I’m sure I pushed the unleaded fuel panel put grabbed the wrong nozzle. Obviously it wasnt dummy proof enough. Good thing I can vent here.
Well, here’s yet another story of diesel in an unleaded regular gas car. I don’t normally like to comment of stories but I read about 75% of the comments and didn’t really find anyone that mentioned what fixed my car. My situation pretty much runs the same as the rest; in a hurry and distracted = 4.75 gallons of diesel in my ’06 Rav4. My lovely wife made sure run the tank pretty much empty before letting me borrow it and I only had $20 to fill up and yes, I noticed the nozzle didn’t completely fit but I had some trouble with the regular nozzles that fuel up quickly the first 20,000 miles (long story) so I assumed, in my hurried and distracted state, that this had something to do with that. Anyway, I started her up and noticed the A/C controls freaking out, blinking on and off. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the diesel or not since it had never happened before. I pulled out of the gas station and drove about 1,000 feet before I noticed the RPM meter wasn’t rising when hitting the gas. I could feel the car starting to lose power so I started to mash the gas harder which probably wasn’t the best idea but it got me enough speed to coast to a parking lot and park the car. I tried starting the car 3 or 4 times before I starting putting the puzzle pieces together. I Had the car towed, using my road-side assistance that I purchased with the car, to the closest Toyota dealership. I explained every detail and told them not to do any work without contacting me first with the total. As I figured they called with a total of $470 worth of fixes. They said that I probably didn’t break anything but they would need to drop the tank, empty and clean it and the same with the fuel lines. They also mentioned that the fuel filter would have to be replaced. This was a lot of money for my wife and I so I called a Russian car mechanic friend of the family’s and he said he’d do it all for $250. Still, a lot of money so I started searching on the Internet and found this article. Reading through the comments I realized I couldn’t really trust the mechanics in regards to the situation and that this kind of thing may not have catastrophic results. I asked the mechanics at the dealership to push the car back into their lot and that I needed to do some more research. I told my dad about the whole situation and that I wanted to try the cheap route of fixing this before I paid that much money. Growing up and working around machinery, my dad agreed that was probably a safe route to take. Instead of siphoning from the gas fill-up nozzle, which was located a lot higher than the actual gas tank, we unhooked the pipe that leads to the gas fill-up nozzle, at the gas tank. It was just using a simple clamp that we unscrewed and there was a kind of stop valve that you had to push in order to get the gas to start flowing out. We also jacked the car up in the opposite corner to maximize the removal. After only getting a gallon or so of gas we realized that the gas tank was wider than it was taller and the nozzle sat more on the side of the gas tank than on the bottom. Luckily we brought with us one of those plastic hand pumps that usually come with kerosene heaters (http://www.redhillgeneralstore.com/A46435.htm). We hooked up a rubber pipe to the end of the pump to get it farther into the gas tank. Using that we were able to get the rest of the gas out. By the way, we were emptying the diesel into a drain pan and then into a 5 gallon paint bucket. (http://www.nextag.com/Blitz-USA-BTZ11838-15-82332465/prices-html). Once all the diesel was out we filled the tank with high octane gas and tried starting it unsuccessfully about 15 to 20 times. At this point I was afraid of frying the starter and/or the battery. My dad suggested buying some starter fluid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starting_fluid) at the nearest gas station. I’ve seen him use it to start a troubled mower and it works miracles which it did in our situation. We got some and sprayed directly into one of the fuel intake lines that we unplugged at the engine. After popping the fuel line back in place my wife tried starting the car and it worked but it only ran for about 5 seconds. She said she actually switched the car off right after trying to start it and it ran in the off position. We also noticed a lot of smoke coming from the muffler. At this point I’m really getting nervous but at least the engine was turning and my dad reassured me that this was getting better. So we did this several more times (including spraying the starter fluid) and the car starting running on its own. We let it idle for a few minutes while we cleaned up and then drove it around the parking lot and restarted it to make sure we didn’t get stranded. We’ve driven another 100 miles or so since and it’s still running fine. While working on all this we found the fuel filter next to the engine. I plan on replacing that and the spark plugs and getting some fuel injection cleaner to make sure there isn’t any dirt left over from the diesel. The car has 42,000 miles on it already so I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do those things anyways. Sorry for so much detail but I figured someone in the same situation may need it. Hope this helps!
I put a 1/3 gallons of Diesel, at Chevron. I would have completly filled the tank except I noticed the nozzle seemed short, and then looked at the pump, and it was Diesel. I will just keep topping off my tank. I think diesel floats above gas, so it would be very had to drain or suction that amount out. 200 miles and still going strong. They used to make the diesel nozzle wider, so it would not fit a gas vehicle.
This is a correction to my last post. I looked up the specific gravity for the two fuels at simetric.co.uk.htm. Diesel is much more dense, so gasoline floats above diesel. My engine ran sort of crappy, for a couple of minutes, the other day upon start up, and I bet this is why; until the fuels get mixed when driving.
So I guess I join the diesel in the gas tank club today. I was distracted, had absolutely no idea that the diesel pumps were larger and just thought it was a shoddy pump and only realized when the price was so… high, well higher than usual. 8 gallons and $40 later (for my Honda Civic, this is a huge amount of money!), I was pretty panicked. Called my dad (ok, I know I’m 29 but I know nothing about cars) and had him come out to help. Had it towed to a service station using roadside assistance…so right now I’m only out the $40 — we’ll see what the mechanics say tomorrow. Now that I know that no real damage was done (I never started the engine) — I won’t let them overcharge me to just drain the tank.
Thanks!
My husband added 7 gallons deisal to gas tank ( about 8 gallons unleaded gas was there) by accident and he didn’t realize. He drove 200 miles after it. Second morning, Car won’t start and we checked his receipt and found he added diesal and run 200 miles.
We have the car towed to dealer and they drained and clean whole feul system and said, everything is fine except starter needed to be replaced. We paid $550 for it. after about 900 miles drive since then, we found the gas leaking and get the to the same dealer. They said the fuel pump is broken and spend another $680 for this. I don’t not if the diesal adding accident would cause anything further problems. I don’t want to put any further Money on it if there is any potential damage caused by diesal.
Please tell me if you know the potential damage. I am not sure if I can keep this car for further drive.
first off, thanks for posting this. glad i’m not the only one to screw up. just got done draining all 8 gallons of gas (half and half). put in super and am hoping for the best. is trying to start but not turning over yet. giving it some time so i don’t flood it. hopefully it will work. if not i’m getting some octane booster and cleaner. thanks very much again. this was a big help, hopefully. don’t exactly have $500 to $1,000.
p.s.: 900 miles after sounds a little farfetched. not to mention they checked it last time you took it to the dealer. go to a different dealer is my advice. they have to prove it is from the prior incident in order to charge you if it is under warranty. furthermore, you can get them to drop labor fees for time it takes to tear it all apart again because it was their fault for not properly checking it before (if they do prove it is from the diesel). hope this helps rose. good luck.
I will take David’s advice to argue with car dealer about the labor fee. It’s a terrible lesson for adding Diesel to a car. I am wondering if my car engine system will be affected by this mistake.
i belive i accidently put diesel in my crysler sebring. but i just put 10 dollars and right now the diese is about 4 something a gallon so if it all i just put about 2 gallons. well i drove it for a while made it home and then it wouldn’t start. i don’t have alot of money what can i do. the gas says that i only have a 1/4 tank should i go put a cleaner and buy reg gas and pour it. do you think it would work.
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As I proceeded, I got worse and worse acceleration….sometimes none for 50 yards at a time. I might press the pedal down, and not get any reaction for 10 seconds. I just made it to work.
I was towed to Mechanic #1. I told Mechanic #1 each step of what had happened, including “trying to get this weird nozzle into my car to get the gas”. (Now I get that part!) My car was there for 4 days. He said he had absolutely no idea what was wrong with the car. I asked him if he had tested the gas, drained it, etc. He said that he had tested the gas, and there was no problem. In any case, he told me right off that I needed a fuel pump, to the tune of $600. After he put the fuel pump in, he called to say he still couldn’t get it started. Then he said he put in some spark plugs, but the car still did not run at all. He said what he meant by that was that it still could not be driven. At that point, I asked him to put the old spark plugs back in, I paid him $600 for the fuel pump, and four days later after he encouraged me to leave it there so he could further diagnose it (!?), I had it towed to Mechanic #2.
It took only two hours in the new mechanic’s bay, when he called me to tell me that the fuel smelled like diesel fuel, and would I be willing to let him “drop the tank”, and possibly drain the present gas. I agreed. Three hours after that, he called to say that my car was ready for pick-up, and it was running fine. Mechanic #2, as well as friends, said that I never had needed a new fuel pump, because of all the steps which indicated so.
I picked it up, after a fair repair bill, and it has run beautifully for another 800 miles so far. If anyone has any comments, I would truly appreciate them.
(Other than for me to learn the difference between regular fuel and diesel fuel! (LOL- costly mistake!)
I would love some input on this. Inadvertently, I put about 4 gallons of diesel fuel into my 2007 Ford Focus..it already had about 2 gallons regular fuel in it. Up to that point it has always run wonderfully…no different on this day. My gas light had just come on, I stopped on my way to work, put the diesel fuel in by mistake, and continued the remaining 6 miles to work. I “pinged” a bit…at first it was so light that I wasn’t even sure it was my car. More and more, I got worse and worse acceleration….sometimes none for 50 yards at a time. I might press the pedal down, and not get any reaction for 10 seconds. I just made it to work. I was towed to mechanic #1. I told mechanic #1 each step of what had happened, including “trying to get this weird nozzle into my car to get the gas”. (Now I get that part!) My car was there for 4 days. He said he had absolutely no idea what was wrong with the car. I asked him if he had tested the gas, drained it, etc. He said that he had tested the gas, and there was no problem. In any case, he told me right off that I needed a fuel pump, to the tune of $600. After he put the fuel pump in, he called to say he still couldn’t get it started. Then he said he put in some spark plugs, but the car still did not run at all. He said what he meant by that was that it still could not be driven. At that point, I asked him to put the old spark plugs back in, I paid him $600 for the fuel pump, and four days later after he encouraged me to leave it there so he could further diagnose it (!?), I had it towed to Mechanic #2. It took only two hours in the new mechanic’s bay, when he called me to tell me that the fuel smelled like diesel fuel, and would I be willing to let him “drop the tank”, and possibly drain the present gas. I agreed. Three hours after that, he called to say that my car was ready for pick-up, and it was running fine. Mechanic #2, as well as friends, said that I never had needed a new fuel pump, because of all the steps which indicated so.
I picked it up, after a fair repair bill, and it has run beautifully for another 800 miles so far. If anyone has any comments, I would truly appreciate them.
(Other than for me to learn the difference between regular fuel and diesel fuel! (LOL- costly mistake!)
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