Petrol In A Tdci Help Required.

[neo]

Hi all, new to the site and in a bit of bother which i'm fearing is going to cost me.

my wife was driving 2weeks ago and we pulled in for juice, the car had 45 miles of diesel left as it said on the computer. she went in to pay while i filled the car with petrol which would normally be fine for me but hers is a TDCi diesel, I put about 35 litres in. We drove off totally oblivious to what I had just done and about 2 miles out the road the car started to run bad , it started shunting slightly so I told her to pull over quickly and turn the engine off. I opened the fuel cap and had a sniff and smelled the petrol. i rang a mate and we towed the car on his trailer, we drained the fuel out of the car out through the pipe that draws fuel to the fuel filter using a vacum tank specifcally for the job and filled it with diesel. The car started up and ran fine. Now however she throws up the flashing glowplug which kills the turbo, if I knock it off and restart it's fine and dosen't do it again until she's left parked up for while and driven again then the glow light flashes again and i do the same thing, i can almost time it to perfection when she'll do this. Also I have noticed that there is a pinking noise at low rpm like in traffic when I apply small throttle, this disappears as soon as i give it normal higher revs, I'm thinking I may have damaged the fuel pump and injectors. I now know that newer diesel engines are far more sensitive to petrol accidents because of the higher pressures involved etc and that older diesel cars like pre 2000 reg could have got away on a 50/50 mix but I reckon I'm nackered. we've driven petrol cars all our live and i still drive a 740i so it was force of habbit that i put the wrong nozzle in. It made me think after whay in the year 2010 that they haven't fitted diesel cars with fillers like on unleaded cars to avoid this mistake, apparently it happens a lot.

any help appreciated guys I'm taking her into the main stealer tomorrow for a diagnostics test but if it's going to run into 1000 plus then i'll just drop a fresher engine into her. the engine in it at present is a TDCI 115 bhp with 110,000 miles and it's a 2006 reg Mk 4 mondeo

[mintalkin]

did you put a new filter on? your right the pump and injectors are the big worry. all i can say is after the diagnostics get the work done someware else as it will be half the price of the main stealer.

[kevo]

did you put a new filter on? your right the pump and injectors are the big worry. all i can say is after the diagnostics get the work done someware else as it will be half the price of the main stealer.

[kevo]

Hi unfortunately petrol buggers common rail injectors instantly. Id change these but you ll have to have the replacements coded.

Good luck.

kevo

[Bill Badger]

I disagree. I did this too a few years ago. I also noticed soon after, when the engine felt like it was not running as it should. I had put about 20 litres in on top of the 10 litres of diesel remaining. (Luckily in a way that it was a motorway services with high prices, otherwise I would have filled the tank!). It was Christmas Eve and I had little option but to top it up with diesel and carry on. Every petrol station I came across on my 200 mile journey I stopped at and topped up again with diesel to reduce the ratio of petrol. 50,000 miles on, and the vehicle is running well, with no adverse effects. I have spoken to other people about this, and the stories that come out are far worse than yours or mine, with no one seeming to have wrecked an engine, so I wouldn't worry too much, particularly since you drained off as much as you could soon after you realised the problem. I must add though, that I didn't get any wierd glowplug lights or similar coming on.

Remember that some diesel drivers still apparently add a drop of petrol to their tanks in very cold weather to stop the diesel freezing.

[suraj]

Once i was listening to radio and this conversation came up. Apparently this guy had a diesel and filled up petrol and he notice right away did not switch the engine on and he called AA or RAC one of them, And was adviced to filled some oil ( i have no idea what type of oil). but what this did was it neuralised the petrol. Whether this is true or not, Maybe someone in the forum can explain a bit more if they have any knowledge of this?