Diesel Fuel In A Car -Ooops!

[JSUPreston]

Good question about liability. If it were my own mistake, I'd pay out of pocket, but who bears the burden on this one? If this had been my car, someone besides me would be coughing up the jack. IMHO: I think it would be the distributor. I don't know much about gas stations, but I know the Chevron I frequent has the tanks clearly maked with colored openings for the delivery driver.

[docrowan]

But never use ether as a quick start in Diesel engines either. My old boss, very bright indivual who owned his own company and employeed sometime upto 10 electricians found out that ether is a no-no. The repair bill was over 2 thousand dollars.

We use it in our shops all the time. In addition, diesel engine manufacturers sell an ether start aid device for use in cold weather regions. You just have to be careful. Sounds like he used too much, which could cause damage in a gas engine as well as a diesel. A little dab 'll do ya! If it takes more, you've got something else wrong with the engine and you need to do some more troubleshooting.

[radhak]

Radhak,

Sounds to me like your friend got taken for a ride. $5,000 would have bought a whole new engine. Even if it had destroyed all the sensors and injectors, I can't imagine it costing $5,000 to fix.

Maybe that it was a fairly new BMW had something to do with it?


Me, my first few cars themselves did not cost more than $3000. I'd have started walking instead of paying that much...!

[docrowan]

Maybe that it was a fairly new BMW had something to do with it?


Me, my first few cars themselves did not cost more than $3000. I'd have started walking instead of paying that much...!

Right there with you radhak. The two cars my wife and I currently own cost less than $5,000, combined!

[billwmeyer]

This happened to my brother in law in the late 70's. He was on leave and was getting ready for an 8 hour drive to St. Louis to jump a plane. His friend he was riding with didn't pay attention and almost had the tank full. Their solution was to drive around locally for several hours and burn out as much fuel as possible. If they would have shut it off, it would not have started again as badly as it was running. They topped off the tank a few hours later and headed for St Louis very late. Every time the tank was down about an eighth, the filled it again. It was a very long night and two very tired soldiers, but they made it.

As to the ether, I second the notion that he used too much. The only reason we ever used ether on the farm was to start a diesel engine on a cold day. I have heard many tales of someone blowing the heads off of an engine due to too much ether. I have never seen it though.

Bill

[jackellis]

Back in 1995, someone at Chevron made an error like this with aviation fuel (100 LL). It cost Chevron's insurers around $60 million to replace several thousand small aircraft engines. I bought two tanks of suspect fuel before being told to ground the airplane. Nine months later I had a zero time engine, but...

I bought one tank on the way to Idaho right before we flew over some pretty rough country and the other one up on returning. Avgas contaminated with diesel is bad news if it leads to detonation. Especially in a high (for aviation) compression engine with a turbocharger. In an airplane, you can't hear detonation and at that time, I did not have an engine instrument that would allow me to detect it.

We never found out whether our engine suffered any damage. We simply got a free overhaul, but the prospect of a forced landing in the mountains was pretty uncomfortable.

[LinuxRandal]

On a gas vehicle, ether will affect the maf sensor (air intake tube). But it is common practice, to disconnect the tube and put a shot of ether down it, to determine if a no start is fuel or electrical related. That is really all I can recommend ether for.

Once the diesel has been drained, I recommend, running the car through a couple of full tanks, then unplugging the battery, to make it go into a relearn mode. (this won't help the issue of carboned up sensors, but things like Seafoam will help with that).