Petrol in a 3.0V6 TDI!!!

[grebowski]

I don't normally post here as I'm a an A3 3.2 driver, but my dad has managed to fill up his A4 3.0 TDI with petrol, he drove it for about a mile and when the engine started to stutter he stopped, had it recovered back to the dealers and they have completely flushed the system and replaced all the fuel filters,
it seams to be running fine, but does not start as well as it did prior to this.
Having had a talk to the service manager, it seams it may have damaged the injectors and replacments are £500 a cylinder! that will teach him to fill up at the wrong pump!!
Just wondering if any of you A4 guys had heard of similar incidents and know what damage may have been caused?

 

[-Ju-]

My work colleague filled the mercedes Sprinter up with petrol twice in the same week, both times it came to a stop and we drained it at the side of the road. It was fine both times after we put diesel back in.

 

[jcs356]

My dad did it to his 1997 Passat 1.9 110bhp. He got about 15 miles on the residual diesel before it conked out. A full drain and replacement of filters and the car was fine.

Unfortunately I think that the more modern the engine - e.g. the PD or common rail diesels - are a lot more sensitive and what you've been told is probably required. Getting all that extra power out of the engine through high pressure injectors etc. means that they are a lot less tolerant to mistakes. I think you can get away with a drain if it hasn't been started, but once the petrol has been through the system it can cause no end of problems.

Hope you get it sorted.

 

[G4JSG]

Surely petrol would ONLY clean the inside of an engine and not cause damage.

the damage would be to fuel pump, filters or maybe the cat or lamba sensor. any other item that relies on the viscosity of the dieself fuel for lubrication could have suffered too but and idea might be to put a bottle of ZX1 into the fuel tank and this would then re-coat such parts and might help solve the problem.

 

[2003 a4 sport tdi 130]

what if only a tenner of diesel and then 50 quid of the right stuff...diesel!!! ???? i did it to my tdi four days ago after bad day at office. mate suggeste that i just diluted it that way and said 3003 so tough it could run off chip fat!!! strange noise....like whirring at 2000rpm and speed of 60.... seems to have improved and i just hope i flush it out of system.


any advice gratefully apprecited...
worried

 

[vanduara37]

what if only a tenner of diesel and then 50 quid of the right stuff...diesel!!! ???? i did it to my tdi four days ago after bad day at office. mate suggeste that i just diluted it that way and said 3003 so tough it could run off chip fat!!! strange noise....like whirring at 2000rpm and speed of 60.... seems to have improved and i just hope i flush it out of system.


any advice gratefully apprecited...
worried

Should be fine,i bought a 2004 Transit of ebay 500 miles away and on the way home had put £19 of petrol in tank before realising then topped up the rest of the tank with £38 of diesel & that was 3000 miles ago with no problems since ,also my mate has a hire drive company and customers put petrol in his diesel vans all the time and he hasn,t had any major problems as long as you get diesel in asap (might be worth changing fuel filter)

 

[Macduff]

If he stopped when it started to miss I doubt there's any serious damage.

Different car but a neighbour of mine brimmed their A3 PD100 with petrol. Drove it out of the petrol station an conked out after about 200 yards.

They towed it home, drained the tank and towed it back to the petrol station to fill it with diesel. Started after a few cranks and ran fine for 2 years after that until they sold it.

Worth a try before shelling out 3K in parts. If parts are required, couldn't that be put through insurance as it's effectively accidental damage?

Finally, he didn't do it at a BP station by any chance? I believe BP were paying for the repairs as they'd changed the colour of pump handles for their Ultimate fuels. This caused quite a few people to fill up with the wrong fuel.

HTH
Dave