I thought the Mondeo had a system to stop you putting the wrong fuel in or is it only on the brand new model?
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I did the same to a Corolla. I topped up with diesel, and added 2 litres of engine oil to lubricate the engine. 2 years later it is still runing perfectly.
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I thought the Mondeo had a system to stop you putting the wrong fuel in
Only the new Mondeo and very latest Focus. And when I say latest Focus I mean the updated Mark II and not all Mark II's.
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Can the pre facelift MK2 Focus be backfitted with the easyfuel filler?
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Had the injectors actually failed? or was it just Ford insisting that they were changed so they could charge the leasing company?
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Had the injectors actually failed?
I saw the state of the engine and it was messed up badly. The car was taken to a dealer in Birmingham where my friends dad worked so we got a good inside story on the state of the car, not the dealer talking bull trying to bump the prices up for work that didnt need doing. With petrol running at a higher temp than diesel the petrol had basically set the engine on fire and melted anything in its path.
A friend had a similar problem with a Brand new ford Focus 1.6tdci (about an 06 reg). He said he had not put petrol in it but someone had sabotaged it. To cut a long story short he claimed on the insurance and they paid up. Gut instint is that he put the wrong fuel in and lied. He claimed the garage filled it up with the wrong fuel or that someone had put a jerry can of petrol in the car as a joke. I can remember the bill for that being around the £2k mark.
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I mentioned before about a Belgian colleague who misfuelled his delivery mileage (kilometre-age) BMW 320d. The bill came to ?8,000 and was put on the company noticeboard as a warning to others.
Ok this is a BMW dealership in Brussels who will charge a silly labour rate, and probably replace parts they could realistically re-use, but this is never going to be a cheap fix.
The lack of lubrication caused the injection pump to break up internally, and send the shrapnel down the high pressure lines to the injectors. Pretty much every part of the fuel system from the filter forward was removed and thrown in the skip.
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Thank you all for your not very comforting but very helpful replies.
Said car has just been towed away by a friendly garage who are going to drain the tank and refill with diesel and take it from there. Although going off what everyone has said, a huge cost looms.
Although if I may make an observation, I find it absolutely ridiculous that the actions of a stressed mind, and one pump over can virtually destroy an engine. Ok, yes it was his fault and his fault alone - but bearing in mind how easy it is to do (I''ve had a close call with a company van) and how frequently it seems to happen, I'm surprised that fuel, albeit of the petrol variety can irreversibly wreck an engine. Of all the cars he's owned over the years (and he has owned some, frankly, ridiculous cars), the most expensive to repair will be the most modern...damaged by a absence of the mind for a matter of seconds.
Sorry for ranting - I know nothing can be done. It's just that the prospect of beans on toast for the next 12 months doesn't fill me with excitement.
I shall keep you all updated.
Thanks for your advice.
Adam
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Good luck, I for one dont believe a lot of the hype about how damage is inevitable. The crucial part is the HP pump, and whether it didnt shed any metal during this time.
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I know that there loads of cunning anti-misfuelling gizmos out there, but here's another:
Mount an RFID chip by the filler cap (which is easy to do as an aftermarket fit).
Mount a sensor on the fuel nozzle trigger, and if sensor picks up the wrong signal from the car RFID chip, then the hose automatically cuts off.
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RFID chips?
How about a more low-tech solution - different-shaped nozzles + filler orifices?
Surely it can't be that difficult to make nozzles with, say, a hexagonal section for petrol and heptagonal for diesel - appropriately-sized to prevent cross-fitting?
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I'm toying with the idea of one of these.
www.misfuellingprevention.co.uk/
For £40 it could be a bargain...
Neither myself nor Mrs APM have misfueled yet, but as has been pointed out it only takes a moment of inattention...
BW,
A.
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damaged by a absence of the mind for a matter of seconds.
He did drive ten miles in a car that was clearly having problems. Filling it up was a small problem. Driving it with petrol in it for that many miles is what will have caused damage.
Let's hope you're lucky. The engine would be damaged if the lack of lubrication from the diesel oil causes the pump to break up and thus inject metal into the engine. If the pump did not fail you may be lucky.
If you have been lucky (avoiding the cheap beans on toast), then you then need to keep fingers crossed that the pump does not fail at some point in the future. Remember these common rail pumps have fuel held in the rail at close to 30,000psi.
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I am just wondering if your lucky with this accident, a good third gear motorway blast would help the car afterwards ?
I would have thought this would clear the fuel lines and also get the engine nice and hot.
Or would it be best to nurse the car around for a tankful ?
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>>He did drive ten miles in a car that was clearly having problems. Filling it up was a small problem. Driving it with petrol in it for that many miles is what will have caused damage.<<
You are of course right Rob, and perhaps I was cutting a bit too much slack. After all, I did say he was to blame.
But (and I'm bound to defend him - this is the man, after all, who has got me out of more motoring "mishaps" than I care to remember), it's easy for us to make the connection "Whoops - car's running a bit ropey - just filled up, I wonder if I've misfuelled" and stop. I would have done that as I'm sure everyone else here would. But Dad doesn't frequent forums or look at websites so to him, this danger (and let's be honest, if you don't know about these things, someone telling you that misfuelling a diesel is curtains for the car would sound unbelieveable) was unknown. To him, he has a noisy car that gets filled from the black pump (usually) but is very economical and that's that. I doubt he could tell you what MPG it gets and I daresay he hasn't the faintest idea how to work the climate control but that's because he just doesn't really care. It's a car, and as long as it's working, great!
He still seems genuinely surprised that he has probably caused extensive damage to it.
Anyway, fingers crossed eh?
Adam
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On reflection, my last post may have made out that Dad is a doddering, clumsy motorist but this isn't the case; in fact, I'd go so far as to say that I have never been in a car with a better driver. But when it comes down to all this black magic voodoo CTDi TDCi and EFGi, he, like a lot of other people I daresay, are unaware of the technical goings on.
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Looks like it might be steak for tea! Early reports are suggesting car was ok after a drain and filling with diesel. It's getting collected tonight so I'll advise a bit later.
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B308 & Harleyman.
Just come on and seen your questions....I'm involved with a small repair garage locally. Rang the owner, a friend, and he has someone who takes all his oil and waste.
Kept some tho' , makes a good cleaner for the greasy bits.
My mistake entirely, filling up, but it was compounded a little by the pump having a black nozzle instead of the usual red one.
Mea culpa.
Ted
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I did the same to a 1-year old Zafira, and it was only when it conked out going down a hill that I put "filling up" and "iffy engine" together. AA collected car, and as it was a lease car they sorted it out - £450.
I went back to garage as I was sure I had used the diesel pump. However I hadn't. I had used unleaded, but it was running an advert for the diesel golf on the handle of the nozzle - I saw the word diesel....
But it ran very well for two more years with me and then a friend bought it from the lease company (knowing about the problem) and they ran it for a further 2-3 years before the clutch gave out.
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I went back to garage as I was sure I had used the diesel pump. However I hadn't. I had used unleaded but it was running an advert for the diesel golf on the handle of the nozzle - I saw the word diesel....
I once stopped at a Shell garage to fill up my M3. I always tried to avoid Shell garages as they didn't have Super Unleaded, only the V-Power ripoff stuff but the SatNav couldn't find anything else in the vicinity.
Anyway put the nozzle for the V-Power ripoff petrol in the tank and started filling up. Put the filler on automatic and left it to fill whilst I observed the blonde filling up her Carrera. After a minute or so glanced at the nozzle and noticed with horror the big "Diesel" sticker on it. Heart in mouth I switched the filler off and pulled the nozzle out of the tank. Then I noticed the sticker was actually an advert for the diesel Audi A5.
I reckon that incident took several years off my life expectancy.
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I'm involved with a small repair garage locally. Rangthe owner a friend and he has someone who takes all his oil and waste. Kept some tho' makes a good cleaner for the greasy bits.
Cheers Ted. I was merely curious as I suspected the local recycling centre would have had a blue fit if you'd turned up with that lot!
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And from me, Ted!
Going back to Adam's comment on how such a small thing can cause such damage... I think we've covered it before, but basically its the nature of the fuel (diesel is more "lubricating" than petrol) and the complicated nature of modern diesels...
It would be a nice idea to have different shaped nozzles but for it to work it would have to be a retro fit... and I suspect that would be too costly...
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... he has someone who takes all his oil and waste....
We had a heater in the garage which ran off, among other things, waste oil.
Used to drain all the old oil filters into it as well - surprising how much you can get out of half a dozen a day.
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I thought about a heater but it was half derv half super UL. might have put the garage into orbit. Made my caravan waste water containers stink for ages afterwards.
Long gone are the days on road rescue when you rescued someone on a garage forecourt by parking them over a drain round the corner and syphoning it straight out. !
Ted
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Good morning everyone.
Sorry for the late reply - looks like we may gave got off lightly with this one...car is back with us and seemingly running fine.
Just charged for the new diesel that it was topped up with.
Thank you all for your very helpful advice. I'll let you know when sufficient time has passed to allow me to joke about it!
Adam
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That is an incredible result after a 10 mile drive - was it a difficult urban 10 miles or relatively easy rural 10 miles ? how long was the journey ?
The natural inclination by the non mechanically minded, or indeed many mechanically minded, is to floor it to 'clear the problem'.
Is it the mk11 or mk 111 ?
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Hi able,
It would have been a 10-15 mile stop start journey with a quickish run and then stop start again.
It's what I (rightly or wrongly) would call the mkIII - i.e. from around Y reg to 57.
Adam
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...glanced at the nozzle and noticed with horror the big "Diesel" sticker on it...
...Then I noticed the sticker was actually an advert for the diesel Audi A5.
I wonder if anyone made the opposite mistake and went on filling a diesel car from that pump. Might have made an interesting Small Claims case.
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Sorry for the late reply - looks like we may gave got off lightly with this one...car is back with us and seemingly running fine. Just charged for the new diesel that it was topped up with.
I hope when your parents decide to sell the car, they do the decent thing and 'fess up about the misfuelling to any potential buyer...
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Why? This petrol in diesel thing is 90% cash cow for dealer servicing depts.
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Don't worry Steve. Apart from the fact that Dad intends to run the car to destruction (he's had a good go already!), he's a man of integrity. In fact, before I went on holiday earlier this year, I bought a car and agreed a part ex on mine (for completion when I returned). I actually told the garage that the brake pad warning sensor and the ABS lights were on which didn't seem to bother them.
I returned only to find Dad had gone and got the sensors replaced (at his own cost) because "it was the right thing to do".
I guess it could be an interesting experiment as to how long it lasts. I've just been out in it and you wouldn't think anything untoward had happened!
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As your dad does not know his climate control from his TDCI, how did he know which sensors needed fixing?
Just wondering.
mdj
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I would imagine he did the same as I would - took it to a garage.
Edited by Pugugly on 09/06/2009 at 21:17
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mdj, an odd question if you don't mind me saying. Being 3000 miles away at the time, I couldn't be sure but as mikey suggests, I imagine he took it to the garage and said "My devillishly handsome, witty and very intelligent son passed comment that there are some lights on the dash. Can you fix them for me please?"...or words to that effect.
A light with "ABS" on it and another that's in the shape of a brake pad would have pointed them in the right direction I should think.
Adam
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What's your brother called then ?
Edited by Pugugly on 09/06/2009 at 21:18
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You can go off people very easily. ;)
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