Diesel in Gasoline engine
 

My wife took my car to work today. On the way home she stopped to put gas in it.
She says that she put in about a dollars worth of diesel before she realized it. She then put in about four dollars worth of gas.
What should I do?
Will this small amount of diesel do any harm?
She drove about 30 miles to get home.

As long as the car runs, it won't hurt anything. If you hear any preignition, you will need to ease off the gas to prevent it, but if it is a mid eighties or later, there is a knock sensor that will prevent any problems in this area.

Relax and run the tank near dry, then fill it up.

Happy New Year,

I would at least "top off" the tank with the proper octane fuel.

Fill the tank with gas and everything should be fine it may even lubricate your upper cylinders a little.

now I know that the world is truely upside down as it is usually the other way around........
William Rogers.......

I don't know if I have already posted this story, but my Dad when he was alive truly loved his diesel VW rabbit. Unfortunately, he was somewhat thg absent minded professor type and would regularly put gas into it.

It happened so often that the local gas station not only stopped charging him for drain the gas out, but they would insist on pumping the fuel for him. They actually had a note posted by the cash register to always have someone run out and put the diesel fuel in his car for him. Nice guys.

Haasman

Hi Guys

The rule of thumb we use on this side of the pond is if its less than 10% contaminated then you will be OK - any more than that and the advice is to drain the tank. I cannot vouch for the scientific substance but the UK motoring rescue organisations follow it.

To my eternal embarrassment I did this about a year ago and before I realised I had selected the wrong fueling line I had put about 30 litres of diesel into the almost empty tank. Phoned the RAC (rescue outfit) - they repeated the above mantra and offered to tow me free of charge to a garage about 15 miles away - where I would be charged around £60 ($90 ish) to have the tank drained and the 'contaminated' fuel disposed of in accordance with the environmental regulations' - yeah right! As it happened I was only 3 miles from home - lift me home please - and I drained it myself. Unfortunately I have no kit that runs on diesel and I had to dump it at a recycling centre (no cost though).


Trips to the filling station have never been the same since and I am now paranoia personified - talk about measure twice - cut once;)

Thank you all for your replies.
I also posted this question on the diesel forum also and received some great responses.
This morning she was a little sluggish at start-up and stalled once.
Filled the tank up and took her out for a good run -
seems to be running fine now.

my SD owners manual gives amount of gasoline that can be added for cold weather conditions, will look it up for you if you wish, I would be more worried about alien space craft abducking your MB than a little gas in the diesel or diesel in gas.........
William Rogers.......

Whew!!!

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one concerned about MB alien abduction.

Jeff Pierce