What will happen if you use petrol in diesel engine and diesel in petrol engine?

Answer 1

Firstly, DON'T PANIC! More accurately, petrol (gasoline fuel) has been mixed with diesel fuel.

If you realise your mistake before you leave the petrol pump (bowser at gas station) then stay put, BUT DO NOT START THE ENGINE!

If only a few dollars of petrol has gone in you can fill the tank with the proper fuel and it may be O.K.

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Get help to push the vehicle to a place out of the way. Then locate the fuel line and detach it so that ALL the fuel from the tank can drain into suitable containers.

If you cannot do it yourself, then you must call a motor motor mechanic to do it for you.

Do not start the engine as this makes it a whole lot more expensive to fix.

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Stop the engine to prevent damage to the cat (catalytic convertor) if one is fitted to the exhaust system.

To do th job properly a garage would:

• completely drain the fuel tank, probably by removing it from the vehicle first.
• blow through the fuel lines
• drain the injector pump
• remove and replace the fuel filter
• fully fill the tank with the appropriate fuel
• bleed the system
• start the engine
• let the fuel circulate to dilute any petrol residue in the system
• then clear any fault lights if they are showing on the dashboard.

Another opinion

A TV motoring show recently exploded the myth by both running a petrol engine on diesel and a diesel engine on petrol. They ran badly, but they ran. When revertng to proper fuel both engines returned to normal.

Comment on that opinion

Any qualified motor engineer would say it was probably just a lucky co-incidence for the particular engines tested on that TV show and that there may well have been significant damage done that would show up within a few hours of running on the correct fuel.

In general, you should never ever assume that any engine and its subsystems (fuel pump, fuel injectors, etc.) would be as tolerant of being fed with the wrong type of fuel.

Answer 2

Nothing - unless you start you engine - So DO NOT START ENGINE! PUSH YOUR VEHICLE AWAY FRON THE PUMPS. If you start the engine then diesel sill get into the fuel system and be quite a job to empty it. Get someone to empty the tank completely. Then fill with petrol and drive as normal. If you drive the vehicle away it will very soon come to a sudden stall, probably no damage is likely to occur, (unlike if you had put petrol into a deisel vehicle!!), but it will cost a lot more to clear the system from diesel.

Answer 3

Serious damage. Any diesel mechanic, would recommend draining the entire fuel system and re-filling it with pure diesel. I do know some guys that add a gallon or two of gasoline to their diesel trucks, meaning big rig semi's, in the winter for easier starting, however their truck's fuel tanks have a 50 gallon capacity. Diesel is a lubricant as well as a fuel. Running gasoline, or a high mixture of gasoline WILL cause SERIOUS damage to a diesel engine, so remove all the gas immediately.

Answer 4

gasoline in diesel will not cause a problem, the gas will actually clean the injectors and and will just burn off in normal running of the engine

Answer 5

Petrol in a Diesel will cause serious engine damage if you run the engine.

Diesel in a petrol engine and the engine will simply not run. No damage will be done.