Half a tank of petrol in our diesel Surf... help!!

[eccles291]

The missus managed to get too engrossed listening to the penalty shoot-out when she was at the petrol station tonight and managed to put £20 of unleaded petrol in our 3.0L diesel Surf (2nd Gen). She called me to tell me what had happened just after the penalty shoot out finished... as you can imagine, her impeccable timing really helped cheer me up after the England result!!

The tank was almost empty when she put the petrol in so there's probably about 5 litres of diesel mixed with 20 litres of unleaded in the tank. Fortunately she re-engaged brain and noticed her mistake before trying to drive off so when I got there we towed the Surf home. (Fortunately I had the works Nissan Navara so towing the Surf wasn't really a problem). It has NOT been run - or even turned over - since her little faux pas.

Question is: how do I get the unwanted (and presumably useless) mixed fuel from the tank and then dispose of said contents. And... am I right in thinking that, once emptied, simply filling the tank to the top with diesel the engine will run okay?

Thanks in advance.

[dave.j.robbo]

Hope you didn't tow it too far!! Auto's dont like being towed too far!

Anyway. Can't see a problem with a bit of petrol in a diesel tank. 20 litres may be a bit much, but traces shouldnt be a problem.

Some people even add petrol to create a fuel combo mix, when using large quantities of veg oil.

As to how to drain it, umm.. How about disconnecting the fuel inlet to the filter, lowering it to the floor and it should syphon out (into a container, obviously!!) Remove the filler cap to create a path for air to get in!

[andy_enuff]

Don't bother draining it, just put in 12 litres of veg oil and top the rest up with diesel

[eccles291]

It wasn't towed far at all - 2 or 3 miles at the most - and we didn't go over 30mph. Hopefully that should be ok.

[fatfires]

I would drain as much as poss...I reccon you could use it in a 2 stroke mower or whatever or for a parts cleaner/de greeser. Bit of a risky mix for lighting bonfires tho!!!

[BUSHWHACKER]

The missus managed to get too engrossed listening to the penalty shoot-out when she was at the petrol station tonight and managed to put £20 of unleaded petrol in our 3.0L diesel Surf (2nd Gen). She called me to tell me what had happened just after the penalty shoot out finished... as you can imagine, her impeccable timing really helped cheer me up after the England result!!

The tank was almost empty when she put the petrol in so there's probably about 5 litres of diesel mixed with 20 litres of unleaded in the tank. Fortunately she re-engaged brain and noticed her mistake before trying to drive off so when I got there we towed the Surf home. (Fortunately I had the works Nissan Navara so towing the Surf wasn't really a problem). It has NOT been run - or even turned over - since her little faux pas.

Question is: how do I get the unwanted (and presumably useless) mixed fuel from the tank and then dispose of said contents. And... am I right in thinking that, once emptied, simply filling the tank to the top with diesel the engine will run okay?

Thanks in advance.

My missus done the same to our diesel Clio, put £20 of unleaded into the tank before realising she wasn't driving the Mondeo!
Anyway, told her to fill the tank up to the brim with diesel on top of the petrol.
It was a bit down on power for about three days, 'cos the clio does 60MPG and we had to wait until she had used some fuel so that we could top up with diesel again.
The car is running on 100% diesel now, and no ill effects from being poisoned!


The injectors are nice and clean now though.

[da SLUG man]

i think the 2nd gen has a drain plug on the tank??

[ssray]

stick some veg in it .i do it anyway

[Greebo]

i think the 2nd gen has a drain plug on the tank??

Yup. just drain off a couple buckets and fill with diesel. should be fine.

[eccles291]

Sorted!!

Found the drain plug and drained out the expected 25 litres or so. Seems like there's a damn site more than that though as I ran out of containers at one point, even though I had way more of them than I thought I needed, but at least it's fixed now and that's all that matters.

Filled it up to the brim with diesel and there doesn't seem to be a hint of any problem. Probably mainly due to not even turning the engine over after the petrol went in.

Oh yeah, big to Toyota for putting a drain plug on the tank... made the job easy.

Thanks for all the help guys.

p.s. - if anyone in the area needs some diesel/petrol mix for summat let me know, I've got about 30-odd litres of it sitting around doing nowt!