Help! I put petrol in diesel car

[WhatdoIdoooooo]

Nightmare.

Just been to the petrol station, car was on v low no petrol (I know I know)
Our car has been in the garage for a while, so we’ve had a hire car-a petrol one (ours is Diesel)
I only had enough in my purse to put €10 in and by accident I put petrol in, instead of Diesel. Thankfully I realised my mistake when I was putting the pump back and didn’t start the car.
I went in to ask for help, they recommended I go to the garage nearby, then saw it was shut for lunch, I had to move my car out of the way, so people would have to help push 😩
The woman there said I hadn’t put much petrol in so if I was to put a lot of Diesel in it might be ok. I managed to convince them to let me put €50 in so I could drive home and get the €50 and bring it back to them. The car started and I managed to do this, car was running ok, is the car ok now??? Or do I need to do more? Have messsged Dh but he’s at work and hasn’t seen the message yet

@Paulrn What would you say the percentage was from my amounts?

€10 petrol
to
€84 Diesel

It's as useful as it gets. I gave the link to the AA webpage earlier that explains the risks. I can't put on a pychic hat and inspect the vehicle. Anyone saying "it will be ok" is just being nice and doing the usual MN group collective failure hug thing. They're not being helpful in any practical sense.

On a positive note, your husband can get upset if the engine does now fail as it turned out his advice was no better.

It’s a hire car, so she won’t have it in 18 months 😉😁

I did this, well sort of as I realised what I was doing when I'd put about 50p worthof petrol in my diesel car. Even that worried me, I am a worrier. I hope it will be OK.

9.4%

@Notamum12345577 This is our car 😩 We were using the hire car whilst ours was fixed, I was used to putting petrol in it, then got ours back and I automatically put petrol in by mistake, have a lot going on at the moment

I reckon you'll be ok. When it gets it 3/4 empty fill it to the top with diesel again, and repeat doing that a few times. You haven't put much in so should get away with it.

There is so much misinformation on here. As this poster has said its really bad to put petrol in a diesel.

I put nearly £60 unleaded in my diesel, didn't notice till I'd driven the 5 mins home and noticed the receipt. I had the tank drained and then filled with diesel but within months the car needed a new engine. It started juddering at first, still passed MOT as they couldn't find what was wrong then basically the engine drained of oil halfway through a long journey. No way could it be a coincidence.

I always believed diesel in a petrol car was worse but the recovery guys said no, the people who drained my car of petrol said that was their 3rd call out that day all within a few miles so clearly its quite a common mistake!

£10 of petrol is probably only a teaspoons worth nowadays!

Seriously, you should be ok with only £10's worth.

I should have said you may be lucky as it was such a small amount but you just never know. You should never have driven it and should have called for proper advice really. Fingers crossed its OK

No one can really say what the long term effects will be. You might get away with it, you might not. Quite often, after a modern diesel has been started on petrol you can be looking at complete fuel system replacement including tank, lines, high/low pressure fuel pumps and all the injectors, especially if you take it to a main dealer who will relieve you of a few thousand for the privilege.

That can’t be right, as €10 to a €100 would be 10%, so 10 to 84 would be a higher precentage

Ah, sorry my mistake!

@Paulrn So what should I do? 😩

I did that with an old car. Was absolutely fine

I did this but only with a few pounds worth before I realised! Garage told me everytime it got to 3/4 to keep filling up. I did this and it worked. Its a horrible feeling and could happen to all of us!

You put £10 of petrol in a diesel car. Petrol is about £1.40 per litre so about 7 litres. Most cars have 50 litre tanks and i guess the car wasnt fully empty. Now its probably full with about 10% mix of petrol. Not brilliant but ive seen cars cope with worse but i wouldnt want it to be any higher. IMO you have 2 options to mitigate your situation.

1. Keep topping up your fuel every day and basically keep diluting the petrol content each time you add more diesel

2. Dont drive the car another inch and call a fuel doctor type mobile fitter. They charge about £150 to suck all the fuel out of the car, do a flush and put £20 worth of fuel back in. No guarentees but a hell of a lot cheaper than taking it to a garage when it may not need it. If you put the £50 straight in and it already had diesel in the fuel lines, filter & pump it may not have used much of the petrol if you only did a short journey home.

We had a brand new A class at work which got diesel put in a petrol engine. We recovered it from the forecourt ourselves and local Merc garage wanted £1700 to sort. Called fuel doctor people and he sorted it in 30mins and £150. Never missed a beat after.

If you have AA membership, I'd call them to drain the tank.

Now that you have filled up with diesel, the person who comes out may say not worth it, but I'd call them anyway.

Yeah, more like 10.6% but not very helpful without knowing the actual quantities that were put in.

Wrong way round. Petrol in a diesel car is a frigging nightmare.

@Tessasanderson Car was definitely fully empty, on v low, zero left really

You would be surprised how much fuel is still in it even when empty on the guage. How far did you drive it home?

@Tessasanderson Its just down the road.
Am I ok to drive it now? It’s completely full
and dh says we’ll have to keep refilling it wheh it goes down a little

10.6%. Have you spoken to a car mechanic at all?

Just keep filling and filling. It worked for me.

That and pray.....