mustangcat

A good friend of mine was the victim of gas station stupidity; the diesel tanker put diesel fuel in the tank meant for gas customers. So basically there was diesel in the petrol pumps.
Luckily only about a gallon of the diesel was in his tank.
He didn't even know about it until a few days later when the gas station sent him a letter apologizing and volunteering to pay for any damages to his vehicle.

My question is....What kind of damage could this have caused?

We immediately dumped his tank out and put fresh gas in it. Sounds like it was misfiring or knocking...Although I'm not too savvy with engine noises...

silverstang1996

I have wondereed what will happen in a situation like that. You should have him put diesel back in the tank and see what will happen and PM me about it =D

buster

I don't know what kind of damage it would have done, but diesel oil is about 40 octane. It's a by-product of making gasoline which makes me wonder why diesel is so much more expensive than gasoline. I just came up with the answer : Oil companies are putting it to us. And If you don't think you pay these prices, have any of you noticed how much your grocery bill has increased in the last year or so?

mustangcat

Yeah your right. I'm thinking it's just demand that forces the prices up. If Americans didn't own F350's and Ram 2500's with diesel engines I'm sure we'd be paying $1.50 for diesel just like back in the day.

I'm wondering if the fuel injectors could have been messed up by the diesel?

Fobra

... as if cost and demand determines the price of gas

mustangcat

No ones experienced diesel in a gas tank???

silverstang1996

that why i told you to try it again

Lowtryx

I've experienced Diesel in a gas tank.

It will run like a herd of Turtles, but it will run..
At work, once we dumped an entire tank of Diesel into a 4.2L F150 and a fair amount of diesel into a 5.0L Chevy Caprice. They both rank like ****, had to be cranked for quite a few seconds before firing and smoked a fair amount along with enough vibration to keep even Jenna Jameson happy, But they ran.

As far as I know, it shouldn't do any major/permanent damage, especially since you've already removed the fuel from the tank. We simply topped up the F150 with regular every day or so and it ran well enough. The Carpice, however ran rough without top ups.

Now, if you had been driving a Diesel and you had filled up with Gasoline.. That's where the real fun begins.

Xemeth

Diesel USED to be a lot cheaper, but newer restrictions on diesel engines require them to run and burn cleaner, therefore making the process to refine diesel more time consuming and expensive. The oil companies aren't just "putting it to us." I mean, they're ripping us off, but not rediculously bad like you said they are with diesel. It actually is more expensive than gasoline.

And as far as diesel being used in a gas engine, yeah, it's really bad, but you didn't run it for long, right? You emptied the tank, and put all fresh GASOLINE in, so you should be OK.

But with diesel it will detonate really bad, since it's such a low octane. Octane is a resistance to spark knock, or detonation. Higher the octane, the more resistance to knock. You'll still have some diesel left in the lines and fuel rails, but I doubt it'd be enough to cause it to knock long enough to cause that much damage. Nothing instant should happen. It might have shaved some mileage off the car's life, but nothing major. Most people nowadays don't keep cars long enough for them to see a full engine life, anyway.

mustangcat

I see. Thanks Xemeth