Today after 20 years of driving diesel cars I was finAlly admitted to that apparently not very exclusive club - the Misfueller's
Still not entirely sure how I managed to select the wrong nozzle but the terrible truth dawned afte 5 litres. Pushed the car to the parking area with the help of a kindly passer by and after a call to the AA was ferried to a garage for the tank to be cleaned out. Cost £245 and of course the £8 for the wasted petrol. Arrived at my destination 4 hours late.
I musts say that all concerned were most helpful and efficient, the guy at the AA who answered the phone, the breakdown truck driver, and the mechanic at the garage and the chap who kindly gave me a push.
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mmm I wonder if I would have taken the risk with 5 litres and brimmed it with diesel.......
that is some cost, are they not just cashing in on everyone's fears of petrol into diesel? How was the 245 broken down?
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I did it in December 2013 for the first time. It was a Friday evening after a really long week at work and I must have been elsewhere – thing is, if I had to swear on it I would have sworn that I picked up the diesel nozzle – I can only guess that the previous user had misplaced the nozzles in error.
Put about 10* litres of motorway unleaded in to my car without realising then drove home.
Parked up, got changed to go out, jumped in the car and it would not start. The AA pitched up checked the diagnostics (no problems) then smelt the fuel tank. It was clearly petrol.
The AA man couldn't fix it and had to arrange for a specialist AA visit the next day at a cost of about £300 plus £50 lease company fee!!!
There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage though and I am grateful that there was enough diesel in the tank to get me home.
*Because it was so expensive!
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I did just that, plus added a double dose of Millers diesel plus and the car is still running well 7 years later. It is a gamble!
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TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE POUNDS !!!!!!!
HOLLY CRAPOLLA am I in the wrong business
Like Bobby, with 5 litres only I would have diluted it with fresh diesel.
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>>Like Bobby, with 5 litres only I would have diluted it with fresh diesel.
am sure there is some Scottish blood in you........ :)
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>> TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE POUNDS !!!!!!!
>> HOLLY CRAPOLLA am I in the wrong business
>> Like Bobby, with 5 litres only I would have diluted it with fresh diesel.
But would we risk it if in the same situation? Gamble and get it wrong and it could be a new engine and turbo.
Do this in a lease/company car and you might be liable.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 10 Feb 15 at 00:07
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I did this to our Galaxy. About £10 -£15 I think - so about 1/3.
Filled it with diesel, kept topping it up, sold the car many thousands of miles later with seemingly no ill effects.
I put petrol in on purpose, I didn't mistake the pumps. I managed to forget that the Galaxy was diesel.
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>> Do this in a lease/company car and you might be liable.
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Not Mercedes, but we had BMW & Audi company cars and some people (it seemed to mainly BMWs and mainly the girls, but the blokes probably wouldn't admit it) mis-fueled multiple times.
We ran the cars to 3yrs / 90K miles and I never heard of any problems. They may have packed up at 91K of course!
I've has the petrol nozzle in the filler neck, but thank Goodness noticed as I squeezed the trigger. I drive both petrol and diesel cars so have a routine now of putting the nozzle in the neck then standing back and checking everything is correct before starting to fill.
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Or take the time and trouble to siphon some petrol out before brimming with diesel. £245... they saw you coming. They must get quite a lot. We've all chucked money at situations in our time. No blame as the I Ching says.
I'm reading a good book about gold prospecting in fifties Australia. The author has a 'Troopie', some sort of big jeep thing.A cunning old outback hand advises him when he gets stuck, to make a cup of tea before trying anything else.
Damn good advice, stand back and look at the situation and take your time, don't waste energy in a desert far from help.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 10 Feb 15 at 00:33
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>> I'm reading a good book about gold prospecting in fifties Australia. The author has a
>> 'Troopie', some sort of big jeep thing.A cunning old outback hand advises him when he
>> gets stuck, to make a cup of tea before trying anything else.
Not "Lasseter's Reef" is it, AC? And if not
a) Read that if you haven't and
b) What is it please?
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I stuck five litres of petrol in a Saxo diesel (The wife's, he he) some years back. I just brimmed it with diesel and no trouble.
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I stuck 10 litres of petrol in a 95 1.7tdi Cavalier, just finished it off with diesel and thought no more about it. It was probably running on a 20% petrol mix.
That was a good car. Comfortable, frugal, quiet, reliable. Ok it was no go cart but a good car none the less. The turbo was whining a bit when it went back tho after 70k miles.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 10 Feb 15 at 10:31
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>> b) What is it please?
It's called 'Digger', by Max Anderson. Seems an honest enough and quite well-written account of an English guy trying his luck in the Australian goldfields, or what remained of them, in the 1950s. There's a lot of interesting factual stuff about gold mining techniques, horrendous prices for everything in these very remote locations, and some sidelong desert wisdom.
I will investigate Lasseter's Reef. Is it a novel?
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>> I will investigate Lasseter's Reef. Is it a novel?
>>
No, not a novel. True story of Harold Lasseter, who said he had found a huge gold bearing reef, and managed to persuade a group of adventurers to go and look for it. It's the story of that expedition.
By Fred Blakeley. Jolly good read if you can track down a copy. Otherwise tons about Lasseter on the web.
Also recommend "The Dig Tree" if you are interested in Australiana.
Shall look at Digger. Not one I know, thanks.
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>> I'm reading a good book about gold prospecting in fifties Australia. The author has a 'Troopie', some sort of big jeep thing.A cunning old outback hand advises him when he gets stuck, to make a cup of tea before trying anything else.
Someone once gave me similar advice about responding to posts on forums. I've found it really useful on here where I often get a strong sensation of fingers poised over keyboards.
:-)
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Wish I had made a cup of tea before fuelling the car. :-)
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I won't tempt fate here, my outlook on the likelihood of misfuelling is "never say never". It seems such a silly mistake but one I've known very sensible, intelligent and successful people make.
I had to recover a Ferrari 348 to a specialist workshop a few months ago. It had been in for flushing after its owner filled it with diesel; they had collected the car after the work, driven straight to the nearest filling station and filled it with diesel again...
Last edited by: Dave_C220CDI on Tue 10 Feb 15 at 10:27
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How do you put diesel in a modern petrol car, I though the nozzles don't fit that way round.
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I put 10 litres of diesel in my vintage car when the tank contents were not much more than 3 litres. To this day I still don't know how I did it as the can was destined for the vintage car and not one of my diesel cans (I've a lot of cans - comes from a background of speed hillclimbing).
Of course, idiot that I am, I kept trying to start it, and because the starter motor was a bit misaligned, lunched the outside flywheel. Cost me £80 and a morning's labour (from me) to change. Despite draining the tank, and re-filling, engine still ran badly for about 2 minutes but cleared up and now fine.
Rare I fill the vintage car at local petrol station, too much of a bun fight, so fill cans and do it at home along with adding lead substitute and 200:1 two stroke oil as upper cylinder lubricant.
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Older petrol vehicles don't have the narrower nozzles because they were never designed to be unleaded only I guess. Certainly the Commer one could probably be filled from a Jerrycan if you wanted to
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>> How do you put diesel in a modern petrol car, I though the nozzles don't
>> fit that way round.
I was in a filling station. Noticed a car ahead of me was already filling up. I put around 80 litres of diesel in the van I was driving and the car ahead was still filling. I glanced at the back of the car and didn't see any 'D' badge, so I tapped the guy on his shoulder and asked if he realised it was diesel he was putting in. He didn't half swear!
He'd been trickling the stuff in, because he couldn't get the pipe in his filler neck!
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>> >> I had to recover a Ferrari 348 to a specialist workshop a few months ago.
>> It had been in for flushing after its owner filled it with diesel; they had
>> collected the car after the work, driven straight to the nearest filling station and filled
>> it with diesel again...
>>
In my first job after leaving school a colleague went to some seaside resort or other for his annual leave. First day he walked into a glass door in the hotel and broke his nose. The following year he went back to the same place, day one he walked into the same door with the same result.
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Someone had a job in Birmingham which involved using a FLT. For some reason he travelled with the mast raised one day and took out the wall above the entrance to the next bay. Unfortunately that wall had a number of pipes running along it, one of which contained hot oil.
He couldn't do it again. They took the FLT off him.
He did have previous. He bought a BSA 650 and sidecar, and proudly riding it home, forgetting he wasn't on his Tiger Cub solo, tried to bank it at a 90deg. bend.
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>>He did have previous. He bought a BSA 650 and sidecar, and proudly riding it home, forgetting he wasn't on his Tiger Cub solo, tried to bank it at a 90deg. bend.
I had an old motorcycling chum who'd take his chair off each Winter, because his missus wouldn't travel in it when it was cold. At least once a year he'd drop it at traffic lights, forgetting to put his foot down.
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Am I the only person who does not know what an FLT is? Please enlighten me
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>> Am I the only person who does not know what an FLT is? Please enlighten
>> me
Probably not, but you could have worked it out.
You know height was involved, and loading bays.
Fork Lift Truck
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>> Probably not, but you could have worked it out.
>>
I thought "Flight Lieutenant". Ah hah, it's something about chocks and decapitating the chap whose starting it up.
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There's absolutely no hope of you working out that Norton was the FLT driver, is there? :)
Pat
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Haha. I should point out I have never owned a BSA. The very thought:)
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Having just joined the tractor club, I'm hoping not to make the same mistake and put petrol in by mistake.
Touch wood, I haven't done so far with any of the work pool vehicles that are all diesel.
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I used to be quite a fan of tractors but I am not one any more
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I guess that makes me an ex Tractor fan
I'll get my coat
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As stated in my original post the cost of the Fuel Assist service provided by the AA was £245. I believe the equivalent services provided by the RAC is similar. Have been doing a little research and have discovered that Green Flag provide this service free of charge under their premium breakdown covers.
If you have a diesel car that might affect your decision as to who you you use for breakdown insurance.
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...Green Flag provide this service free of charge...
...if they turn up at all, that is. Just my experience of Green Flag, of course.
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An expensive club - BobbyG
