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

Have done this.
What an expense!! Such a waste of money.
The draining company, the lost petrol, the lost diesel and you still have nothing in the tank!!
Sorry.

DH did this to my car. £10 of unleaded in my diesel car. He walked next door to the garage we used (thank god we were close) and asked for advice. They said to fill it to the brim with diesel and keep topping up. We too put in around £85 of diesel and had no problems whatsoever and have had no problems since. Our reliable and respected mechanic said that at those ratios, he wouldn't worry at all.

It’s a higher percentage than that, technically as well, as the OP has only told us the costs of the fuel not the amounts - as petrol is cheaper than diesel there will be a higher volume of it per pound!

I'd get it drained too - I'd rather pay some money now, than face a huge bill / loss that I knew was probably my fault later.

OP, no one can tell you what to do, and not everyone will agree with the best course of action.

Get it drained. It’s not worth the risk

From what others have said, it sounds as though you put a small amount in and might solve the problem but diluting it.

Speaking from experience (twice in a year!!), my insurance policy at the time had misfuelling cover so they came out both times. I'd filled mine up twice which was a bit galling but no lasting damage to the car which I drove for at least another 8 years. Embarrassing to see the same engineer the second time though!

I've done this before. As a pp said, it's something you will only ever do once! I always check the fuel nozzle 3 or 4 times now, before I put the fuel into the car..... every time!. 😆 And it was around 20 years ago!

I filled the car - FILLED IT. Cost me £40 at the time, and as I put the nozzle back, I saw I had put diesel in our petrol car. I think it was because it was 'green diesel' (with a green strip on the nozzle,) and I mistook it for the unleaded petrol pump.

I went cold - and actually started to cry. I thought 'OMG what the fuck have I done?!' 😢 My kids were in the car (we were on the way to the zoo,) and they were upset as I was crying (they were only 5-7 y.o.)

I had to pay for the diesel of course - like £65 in today's money! The woman in the petrol station told me a mechanic lives next door to the forecourt, and he fixes cars, and he may be able to help. I popped next door, and he came round and siphoned all the diesel out for me. Cost me £50 - probably £75 in today's money. Then I had to go pay again for the petrol - Another £40. THAT was an expensive day out at the zoo!

Luckily I saw it in time, and hadn't started the car!

When I told DH later he laughed and called me a daft tit! Bit annoyed about the money spent/wasted, but said 'shit happens, and at least you and the kids are OK. And you did spot it before driving off. The car would have been wrecked else.'

Oh yeah @WhatdoIdoooooo get the incorrect fuel drained out, or you will kill your car!

Dh did this a few weeks ago. A full tank. We siphoned most out that we could. Then filled with diesel. Then as it went down kept filling it up. It's been fine
Typically he'd done it in my car not his too !

Oh gosh OP!! This went SO badly for me a few years ago. As PPs have said, you will ONLY do it once...

I unwittingly put petrol in our diesel car before a long drive home with DD3, and it kept stalling at roundabouts. I just thought at the time that the engine was tired etc. It was the rush hour though and as we drove nearer our home city our car suddenly stopped dead in the middle of three lanes of cars going at about 70mph.

I panicked and I'll never forget my DD3 saying calmly "Mummy I think we need to get out of the car". We exited and made it to the hard shoulder and watched in horror as car after car swerved screeching around our stationary car at high speed until the inevitable happened and it was hit at high speed.

Our car hurtled past us and shot up the bank, narrowly missing us, but the poor driver had to be hospitalised. To make matters worse, he was apparently convinced for an hour that he'd killed the occupants until the paramedics told him otherwise.

NEVER...AGAIN...

I drove my car after putting diesel in a petrol car it got a couple of 100mtrs and broke down. I then had it flushed completely. It didn't run well after that as I said but I forgot to say the engine actually started smoking heavily on the motorway several months later. I was terrified and had a toddler with me at the time.

I'm surprised that so many people will happily give Op risky advice, speculating on petrol percentages etc, but I guess at the end of the day it's not their car and it's easy to gamble with other people's money.
From the car mechanic next to me - never risk even starting a diesel car if you've put petrol in it. Just push it out of the way and call your recovery service. Don't mentally gamble with percentages of petrol to diesel, don't start it, just get it drained. Petrol dilutes the lubricity of the diesel fuel, which causes metal to metal contact, which wears the high pressure pump out. The damage caused can take a while to become apparent if you've put a relatively small amount of petrol in the tank. The damage will be catastrophic and pretty much immediate with a lot of petrol in the tank. With less in there - further down the line when you start to get problems with the pump, injectors, fuel lines etc... think back on the day you decided not to get your tank drained.
p.s. Older diesel cars were more tolerant of a little bit of petrol mixed with diesel in their tank.

Op has put petrol in a diesel car, which is a very different situation.

@Astonmaid Its an older car does that make a difference

Absolutely wrong. And you are defending an idiot who's also got it wrong.

as petrol is cheaper than diesel there will be a higher volume of it per pound!

Not where the OP is in Ireland.

Huh? So every motoring organisation is wrong when the say that putting petrol in a diesel is worse than the other way around? Their advice not to start the engine with more than 5% petrol in the diesel is unsound?

Which idiot am I defending?

www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/95327/wrong-fuel-a-guide-on-what-to-do-if-you-put-petrol-in-a-diesel-car

Advice is to get it all drained out. Trying to decide based on age of car isn't a good idea, but I doubt yours is old enough to count.

p.s. Older diesel cars were more tolerant of a little bit of petrol mixed with diesel in their tank.

We had a 90s Vauxhall Cavalier with an ancient, very slow diesel Izuzu engine in it. Dad filled it with a full tank of petrol before I borrowed it - I got at least 50 miles out of it before it failed. Local garage drained the petrol, changed the filter and put diesel in, it was fine. The mechanic at the time said we were very lucky the engine was so agricultural. It did another 80k before getting traded into the scrappage scheme.

Modern diesels (last couple of decades) are so much more complex and I would take no risks with one. OP needs to listen to people posting with actual evidence instead of anecdotes but seems determined only to hear what they want to.

Obviously both the AA and the RAC have a vested interest in people paying several hundred quid to get their cars drained.

I was thinking that too. It suits them to have people come out.

@Astonmaid

Of course it's not 'a very different situation.' WTF are you going on about?!

OP put petrol in a diesel car, I put diesel in a petrol car!

The situation is virtually the same! I put the wrong fuel in my car too.

Yeah, the damage done to a diesel car by putting petrol in it, will be worse than the damage done to a petrol car if you put diesel into it, but they will both suffer damage if you drive off with the wrong fuel in.

Were you half asleep when you typed this? Or did you mean to respond to someone else?! Because you comment to me makes no sense.

We did this it will be fine we just filled it up with diesel and it was fine no need for your husband to go nuts 🙄

It's massively different. A bit of diesel in a petrol will cause rough running and probably lots of smoke.

Modern diesel engines use the diesel fuel as lubricant for the high pressure fuel pump. Putting petrol in there means no lubrication and given that the fuel pump pressurises to over 2000psi it ruins the thing very quickly. A new fuel pump and common rail fuel injection system costs a tremendously large amount of money.
Diesel and petrol mix together just fine, so unless there's only a minuscule amount of petrol in the tank you run the risk of ruining it.

Better than a few grand for a new fuel pump, common rail fuel system and new injectors