Help! 🙄

Just put 0.88 of a litre of unleaded in my 2007 (E90) BMW 3 series diesel. I filled the rest of the tank up with diesel after realising i’d put the unleaded in. The AA website says under 5 litres should be ok and drive as normal. I’ve driven the car home from the garage which is one mile.

Any suggestions ? Cheers in advance!

IT’S GONNA BLOW!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8YOtURQgPI[/video]

You’ll be fine! I’ve done that before, I know other people who’ve made the same mistake… nobody I know has ever had it be a problem. 🙂

Petrol in diesel is a bigger problem than the other way round. But with the small amount you have put in I doubt you’ll notice any difference.

Fill it right up with diesel, is what I did when I made the same error filling the bread knifes car.

I’m told they suggest a small amount of petrol in diesel isn’t a bad thing in very cold weather, stops it freezing.

How big is your tank, I guess is a relevant question, re ratio of petrol to diesel, somewhere I read 5% isn’t a problem, but don’t quote me, it was t’internet so probably wrong or wishful thinking..

I’d be inclined to ask someone who knows (but isn’t going to profit by stripping your tank out).

the amount i put in is 0.6 of the fuel tank capacity (61 litre tank), so i hope i should be ok! Just worried as it’s a newish engine / model of car. (2007)

Stop worrying. It will be fine.

I put 2litres in my old diesel and only half filled the tank with more diesel and it was fine. Ran a little rough till it needed filling again but no probs in the end

The AA seem to think you will be OK

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuels-and-environment/misfuelling.html

I put the equivalent of 5% in mine, just brimmed with derv and weaved the car a bit to mix it up 😕 , if anything I think it ran better.

Personally I’d keep topping it up to dilute the effect

Was reading on just this subject the other day, useful link and exert here.
http://charming.awardspace.com/otto_diesel/otto_diesel.html

The diesel fuel is better for a diesel motor because it self-ignites more readily, and this is desirable in the diesel cycle. If we try to inject gasoline instead of diesel into the diesel engine, this may not work because gasoline, having much higher self-ignition temperature, may not ignite at all. Of course, if we build the diesel engine to have a really, really high compression ratio then even the 120 octane gasoline will self-ignite and our engine will be able to work with almost anything we put in our tank.

(However, remember that the diesel fuel is better in lubricating things than the gasoline, and diesel-engine manufacturers use this property heavily – so using even low-octane gasoline in your diesel engine may fail because fuel supplying parts will not be lubricated enough. Don’t kill your engine!)

my dad used to swear by putting a litre or so of petrol in all his vehicles* at the start of winter to stop the diesel going waxy. As we all know, dad knowledge is 1000% times better than wikipedia.

*These were largely buses and coaches with vast tanks though – your mileage may vary.

Did they not used to stick pertol into diesel to make it into winter diesel?

Bloke at work put half a tank of unleaded into a Landrover Defender TD5 then filled the rest with diesel and it ran ok, so i’m sure you’ll be fine

Cheers for the replies, well i’ve done over 150 miles since the incident and the car has not missed a beat (yet!), so fingers crossed i’ve got away with it!

That’s a small amount. Before anti-waxing additives people used to put a lot more petrol in the diesel to prevent waxing.

Put it on Ebay, quick.

Adding petrol to SVO is common for the taxdodgers too.