It is very easily done.
One of my colleagues here did the same last Saturday ....15 litres of petrol into diesel , cost him 3 hours ( and £200 ) while his Citroen was collected by AA and taken to a garage and drained down.
The AA man reckoned he saw at least two misfuellings a week.
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It is very easily done <<
Its very easy to keep ones eyes open when selecting which fuel you put in the car too.
The fact that it happens alot simply means that distinguishing between black and green, even with the helpful hint about which colour is which fuel written on the handle, is beyond alot of people. Scary given how complicated driving actually is.
My son who is three can distinguish between two different colours, which suggests that those who cannot, have lower abilities than a 3 year old. I wouldnt let him drive a car...
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I agree, in almost 40 years of driving I have yet to put the wrong fuel into a car....I dismiss the time I put diesel into a hired van because after driving it all day I was certain it was running on diesel it was so slow and rough!
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I agree, for over 12 years ive driven cars that needed 4 star, unleaded or deisel
Touch wood I have yet to misfuel becasue I take care over what im doing, ive always checked ive got the right nozzle for the right car. by checking ither colour of nozzle, what it says on the nozzle, and checking the label on the petrol cap and/or surrounding area - all that aprt from the fact i know what type of fuel my car is.
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"Its very easy to keep ones eyes open when selecting which fuel you put in the car too. "
Humans make mistakes they are not computers or machines. As something becomes more familiar, we tend to notice less, we see thing as we believe they should be and not as they actually are.
We all make silly mistakes at some time, I suspect even you might have made a few.
A really good book on the subject is "Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average" by J T Hallinan which give a good insight into how the human mind works and why mistakes happen". It also very entertaining
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Particularly as petrol pumps have small dia. nozzles and it's wriiten on the handle and usually on the car(if it's diesel).
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The other give-away being the difference in smell... :)
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As I am not perfect, and dont like being hurt in the wallet, I have an anti misfueling device fitted to my car. It has yet to pay for itself, but one stopped misfuel should do it. I fitted it after my BiL put £60 of unleaded in his diesel.
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"It is very easily done"
It is also very easily NOT done.
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Well, I think you are very unforgiving lot on here:)
I've done it and though female, I'm not a dizzy blonde either.
I had been away in the lorry all week filling it up with deisel.
I had just swapped a deisel Xantia for a petrol Mondeo.
I was tired and weary and wanted to go home.
I put deisel in the Mondeo.
It smelled right, it looked the right nozzle, after all it was what I'd been using for years.
The only saving grace was I stopped on the forecourt, as soon as the Mondie coughed, and I realised what I'd done ( I'd put in 12 gallons of derv).
I rang my local garage just around the corner, he came and towed me in and charged me £20 to drain the tank as long as he could have the 14 galls of Derv:)
I jumped at the chance and thoroughly enjoyed the next 10 miles 'booting it' as it belched out black smoke and coughed and spluttered.
So, it isn't always that simple!
Pat
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It IS easily done, especially if the driver is used to a petrol car. I've done it and my wife has done it, luckily with no adverse effects on the car concerned. I also think if you're tired or pre-occupied you are more likely to misfuel.
A mate of mine in Surrey also did it a year or so ago (recently switched from petrol to diesel) and the AA towed the car to a garage that specialises in draining tanks etc following misfuelling incidents - and that's all they do, 24/7, according to my mate, so that gives you some idea of the scale of the misfuelling problem.
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So, it isn't always that simple!
I agree. If a doctor can administer the wrong drugs to a patient in error or a pilot can fly an aircraft into a mountain despite warning from his navigation equipment it is easy to foresee that a driver with other things on his mind might use the wrong pump at a filling station
Since it does indeed happen fairly frequently it does proves the need for a foolproof system to prevent it.
Human beings make mistakes (apart from a few on here who possess the infallibility gene). It is ridiculous that such a potentially expensive problem as misfuelling was not "engineered out" years ago although I do understand that some manufacturers are attending to the issue albeit somewhat belatedly
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