My sister put gasoline in her diesel car and now she might have to get a new car. I don’t even have a driver’s license and have a rudimentary understanding of how simple combustion engines work. Why is the car maybe dead, can it be fixed?
In: Engineering
Diesel in gasoline engine. For a brief moment, smoke, sputter then the engine stop working. Initially there will be some mix gas/diesel. Then the diesel will be too much and the spart of the spark plug will not be able to light it up, and the engine stop working. Diesel require a higher compression for it to ignite, and gas engine just don’t make that compression, even with a turbo or supercharger. Diesel may react with some rubbers and plastics, like hoses and orings. It may destroy those. The diesel may also affect the catalytic converter, killing it. But chance is that if you drain, rince and change the gas filters, chance is that it will be fine. Long term is unknown.
Gas in diesel. Diesel is an oil, and lubricate many key components. Gas also explode instead of burning, so when injected it goes bang instead of “whoosh”. This excerce some massive pressure inside the cylinder, and also some extreme heat. This destroy the pistons and valves. Also, the diesel lubricate a bit the top of the cylinder walls, while gasoline wash out the oil on it. Since the engine is designed for oil on the cylinder wall and now there is none, it also add alot of wear to it. The high pressure pump required for the diesel (like 10k psi pressure or more!) rely on the diesel for the oil. Gas actually wash out the diesel, so no more oil. Now it is metal on metal, so extreme wear, and the high pressure pump get destroyed quite fast. Metal shaving will also flow to the injectors, clogging them. The injectors also rely on the diesel to oil themself. Now no oil so extreme wear. The exhaust system will also be quite hotter, melting the cataliser.
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