Silly mistake could cost thousands!

roseydosey

Help........I made a silly/stupid mistake of refuelling my deisel car with unleaded petrol yesterday! I drove off without realising it and only realised when it broke down. The engine shut down completely......had the car recovered last night. Advice from mechanics is welcome as I fear that I will be ripped off by garages (being a female without motoring knowledge).
I did ring my local VW garage and was told it could cost anything from $200 (pound sign not working)........dh is away at the moment and don't fancy telling him as he will only have a go at me instead of helping me.
What should I do? I don't even have roadside assistance.....had to rely on a friend's mate to recover my car last night......its now parked in the drive way!
Sorry, its long and windy! Thanks in advance, your advice will be appreciated......

steveo3002

how much petrol did you put in and how much diesel was left

how far did you drive?

roseydosey

I put in about $18 worth and drove it for about 2 minutes roughly half a mile if that makes sense! There was about 20 miles worth deisel left in the car when I filled up with petrol!

scatz

Oh deary, deary me_pale_

I wouldn't know how much this would cost to rectify but it aint gonna be cheap! It is most definately worse putting petrol in a diesel engine rather than vica versa. Problem is that you have driven the car to breakdown point which means the petrol has gone round the whole system, chances are that your pump is knackered amongst other things! Depending on the damage, you may have to have the whole fuel system replaced. I did read an article a while ago, whereby someone had filled their company diesel with unleaded and it cost £5000+ to repair :eek: , but then this was on a mid-range BMW....you haven't got one of them have you?

I am only hazarding a guess by the way as I am no mechanic. One thing is for sure....you're definately gonna have to tell the OH.:mad:

Good luck

peterg1965

roseydosey, I feel for you. It is my worst fear doing what you have just done. You just need to take the advice from the VW dealer, if the car is under warranty you need to have it done properly (at your expense) so that the warranty is not invalidated. Good luck and sorry.

roseydosey

I have a VW Golf and the garage did tell me yesterday (without looking at the car) that it would require a new filter etc and it could cost around $200.....could I take out roadside assistance and later make a call out for the car to be taken to the garage? I do not have roadside assistance at the moment! I can only hope against hope that I don't have a major problem with the engine otherwise I cannot afford to repair the car!

Sooler

Ask if the garage if they can come and collect the car, I'd expect they'd have a trailer or tow truck or access to one.

jackieb

I feel for you! My mil did this with a hospital car but fortunately she realised what she'd done before she drove off - they only needed to flush the tank.

What came to mind when I read this thread was that VW advert for diesel cars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GuBdvA7Qus

saintjanet

You are not the first and wont be the last,to do this, it probably wont make you feel any better though,leave it to the garage it has to be done and i dont think they would be talking £200 and then charge £500,they will have done this job before and be aware of the potential problems,if you have told them all the facts,best let them collect it too,joining the AA or similar is now a bit late.GOOD LUCK

mjdh1957

I did this once when I hired a van and the hire company didn't tell me it was a diesel. Obivously I didn't pay, but from memory it only took the garage a couple of hours to drain the tank and flush out the system, they said there would be no long-term problems.

xzibit

Grabbed this from another forum

"If you put diesel in a petrol engine then you have to replace the engine, if you put petrol in a diesel engine then you just drain the tank and replace with diesel. It might run a bit ‘lumpy’ for a while until the petrol has all gone from the system.

Interestingly enough, if you start filling your diesel car up with petrol and realise before you’ve put too much in you can just dilute it with diesel and keep running - it will sound rough and run a bit funny, but only while the petrol works its way through the engine."

So I think you'll be ok. Just a case of draining the system and changing the filter I expect.