406oc.co.uk

HI there, i own a 2.0 hdi 406 estate 110 with 67k, my other half put £30 of unleaded today and it had about 15 - £20 of diesel in it already, only drove it around 2 miles then realised then we parked it, was running fine until we came to stop and went a little lumpy, not started it since.. Gonna get the tank flushed and filter changed and try it and hope for the best, anyone else had experience of this with the HDi engine?

any comments appreciated

I've done several jobs when petrol has been mixed with diesel.
My experience has been fairly successful, once the contaminated fuel has been removed and the filter changed all should be well except for a little bit of smoking from the exhaust and a little bit of jerking until the clean fuel gets around.
The only problem I've had was with a Peugeot 309 that had been run a long while with the contaminated fuel, the engine was permanently damaged.
I would advise you to put as much diesel in the tank as you can after draining the contaminated fuel out, this will dilute any petrol left in.
Good luck with it, hopefully all will be well.

Thanks for the advise will keep you posted, hopefully that it was diluted and not driven for long should be ok...

put 2 litres of 2 stroke oil in (lube for the HP pump), then brim it with diesel and it will be fine, at least your fuel wont freeze up with the petrol in it !

I had to sort out a common rail mercedes diesel van that had run for 40 miles on about 90% petrol after the owner put the wrong fuel in, he drove it making all sorts of noises and the power dropping off till the engine finally conked out and wouldnt start, I put 4 litres of 2 stroke oil in (and about 250ml into the fuel filter) brimmed the tank and it ran perfectly, and has done ever since, and this was 2 years ago now

You used to be able to run a petrol/diesel mix in the old xud engines without problem, but the HDI's are so marginal on pump lubrication that any mix isnt good for them, but 2 litres of 2 stroke oil into the tank provides more lube than diesel itself does, and provided your petrol/diesel mix isnt more than 50-50%, you will be fine

Thanks for the advice, i got a local well known mechanic to drain and re-fuel change the filters etc, did this - re-fuelled and added wynns diesel conditioner to the next 2 tanks.. the car seems fine and to be honest it seems to run better.. i bought it on 47k its now on 69k so is quite low mileage etc, but it sometimes would hold back and every now and then when you started it, it would stop and need to re-start.. it now revs more freely and seems alot faster so maybe there was crap in the fuel system... so although a mistake its now a better car.. thanks again for the advice... it worried me as i used to work in a mercedes main dealer and when this happened they always walked out qith £1500 bills cause we changed pump/injectors/fuel lines etc which was prob not needed!!!

I did this ..ONCE and after 20 years of diesel driving!
This on my 1.9 td. Poor pump markings and tiredness caused me to do this.
I was advised brim the tank each day £10-15 for a week or two then change the fuel filterand run some cleaner through..
Ran perfectly ever since.
Allegedly the petrol sits on top of the diesel in the tank and mixes slowly over a period of time.
I was informed that petrol retailers have this practice, by an ex manager, when they deliver fuel to forecourts as they
are not allowed to drive back with a partial load as this is very dangerous. Dumping up to 10% of unleaded in the diesel tanks.

T

bangernom1cs wrote:I was informed that petrol retailers have this practice, by an ex manager, when they deliver fuel to forecourts as they are not allowed to drive back with a partial load as this is very dangerous.

Correct. Petrol on its own doesn't explode - it's petrol and air that does (in a ratio about 13:1 iirc)

When you see petrol exploding in films, it's usually a can of petrol with an explosive charge placed on it. The explosives disperse the petrol until it mixes with the air to the correct combustion ratio

bangernom1cs wrote:Dumping up to 10% of unleaded in the diesel tanks.

...and we worry about the grade of fuel from supermarkets