Good morning all,

I feel terribly embarrassed about this story - but here goes

I have erroneously filled disel into my petrol car!!😢yesterday (Saturday). Drove the car home 6 miles. Almost half way to home, when I pressed accelerator pedal there was a kind of crackling noise but went away immediately. As soon as I went into my driveway, the noise happened again but I parked and thought I would take the car into the dealership on Monday as they are closed on Sunday. Later that evening tried to start the car - did not start. So took my daughters car to the evening event. On my way back home I told my daughter what happened. She asked lots of question and the important one - "was the car ok on the way to the petrol station. Yes. So she said it very likely to be the bad petrol" I checked the receipt and found I had filled Disel instead of petrol. My heart sank. The dealer is closed today.

Q. Is it OK to wait until tomorrow to get the breakdown cover to drop me to the dealer garage. Is this delay of a day going to cause even more damage?

Will be most grateful for your valued thoughts. THANKS.

Good morning all,

I feel terribly embarrassed about this story - but here goes

I have erroneously filled disel into my petrol car!!😢yesterday (Saturday). Drove the car home 6 miles. Almost half way to home, when I pressed accelerator pedal there was a kind of crackling noise but went away immediately. As soon as I went into my driveway, the noise happened again but I parked and thought I would take the car into the dealership on Monday as they are closed on Sunday. Later that evening tried to start the car - did not start. So took my daughters car to the evening event. On my way back home I told my daughter what happened. She asked lots of question and the important one - "was the car ok on the way to the petrol station. Yes. So she said it very likely to be the bad petrol" I checked the receipt and found I had filled Disel instead of petrol. My heart sank. The dealer is closed today.

Q. Is it OK to wait until tomorrow to get the breakdown cover to drop me to the dealer garage. Is this delay of a day going to cause even more damage?

Will be most grateful for your valued thoughts. THANKS.

I feel your pain. Accidentally had petrol put in a diesel car a while back. Here is the advice from the AA

https://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/advice/wrong-fuel-advice

Don't try and start it again!!

Diesel in petrol's not as bad as petrol in diesel so you might get lucky here since it was only driven a short way.
Not much you can do about it on a Sunday IMO but get it recovered ASAP and explain to the recovery person why and to NOT START IT!
Could be looking at a new cat and maybe injectors/ fuel lines etc.

Hello, welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear of your mishap. No more damage will occur so long as the engine is not run or attempt made to start. How much diesel was added - was it a full tank?

Possibly your best (and cheapest) option is to find a mobile misfuelling specialist to drain your tank and flush the fuel system.

Do you have home breakdown cover on your insurance? Misfuelling cover may be included in this.

Diesel in a petrol vehicle is likely to have caused no lasting problem once the system is cleared.

@s45 As @Warrior193 says above.

I thought a diesel pump nozzle was too large to fit a petrol filler ?

1 hour ago, Lee01 said:

Don't try and start it again!!

Diesel in petrol's not as bad as petrol in diesel so you might get lucky here since it was only driven a short way.
Not much you can do about it on a Sunday IMO but get it recovered ASAP and explain to the recovery person why and to NOT START IT!
Could be looking at a new cat and maybe injectors/ fuel lines etc.

I agree but the part regarding injectors, fuel lines etc is from fueling a diesel engine with petrol where the high pressure fuel pump lunches itself and sends swarf around the system, the OP need not worry about this as diesel has lubricity that petrol lacks.

1 hour ago, NottsIan said:

I thought a diesel pump nozzle was too large to fit a petrol filler ?

Indeed, perhaps the OP can expand on how he overcame that protection.

Thank you all so very much. We have a breakdown cover but only to take it to the garage of our choice. I think most breakdown cover don't cover for fuel error. Yes, you are right, the nozzle is different from the petrol nozzle but because my car was further from the pump, I had to stretch the cable and assumed that it is the distance that is causing the nozzle problem which just about entered the tank but not fully. LESSON LEARNT THE HARD WAY!. There was already a little petrol in the tank (may be to drive about 10ish miles) the rest of the tank I fully filled with disel. Drove about 6.5 miles, just parked into the drive way and it obviously died.

I will wait until tomorrow, first call the skoda dealers to find out if they can take the car immediately so that we can request the breakdown service to take us to whichever dealer agrees for us to take the car to their forecourt.

Any other advice will be greatly appreicated. THANKS AGAIN so much.

Just FYI normally the nozzles are colour-coded to the fuel - black for diesel, green for petrol and sometimes red for high-octane petrol.

Totally agree, no idea where my head was at the time. I was busy thinking of the distance of the car and the pump!

Strongly suggest contacting a mobile misfuelling specialist first, almost certain to cost less than a Stealer.

We've all done it or got close to doing it. Check your breakdown cover, because they might cover for misfuelling. The misfuelling specialists tend to be pretty expensive for what they do. I'd be amazed if it needs any more that the tank draining, new filter and the system flushing through. Not a drama and you might be better with a trusted independant garage, or having a go at DIY'ing it.

The reason I wanted to get it done by the dealer is because our Automatic skoda is 2018 and we are thinking of selling it at some point - may be in a year or 2.

I feel that a clean record of what has been done to her would be better because it has been dealt with by the dealer themselves.

Update:

Checked our breakdown cover - misfuel is covered £250 - only to drain and fill leaded petrol. If the car still does not start then they will have to take it to our chosen garage for repairs which is not covered.. Fingers crossed that they drain and all's well!

3 minutes ago, s45 said:

Update:

Checked our breakdown cover - misfuel is covered £250 - only to drain and fill leaded petrol. If the car still does not start then they will have to take it to our chosen garage for repairs which is not covered.. Fingers crossed that they drain and all's well!

Great news -that'll be 'fill UNleaded' of course.

Edited 23 March, 20251 yr by Warrior193
typo

4 hours ago, s45 said:

Totally agree, no idea where my head was at the time. I was busy thinking of the distance of the car and the pump!

2 hours ago, StevesTruck said:

We've all done it or got close to doing it

There but for the grace of god go I!

You are not the only one who has succeeded with great determination to pump diesel into a filler neck sized for the petrol nozzle!

oooops, yes unleaded 🙂

Girlfriend put petrol in her diesel, but realised after she paid - lucky. Staff pushed her car out of the way, and she called her breakdown firm, who sent out someone to drain tank. £250 seems standard charge, to match cover for accidental misfuelling.

All good now. Diesel drained out of our petrol karoq. Was told it might take 1.5 hours for the Drain Fuel company to get here but came within 20 mins. Took 30mins to drain, he said filled up petrol worth £10.00. We went to the nearest petrol station and filled it up.

THANK YOU EVERYONE.