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
A diesel car will actually run on gasoline for a short time. Gasoline burns easier then diesel so the engine will run just fine. The problem is that diesel is a much better lubricant then gasoline. So diesel engines use the fuel to lubricate parts in the injection pump and injectors. Without enough lubrication these parts wear out after just a few minutes. You can replace these components but in a lot of cars and engine models you have to disassemble so much to get access that it is cheaper to buy another similar car rather then pay the mechanic for the work. What you usually do is to stop the car as soon as you notice, tow the car to a mechanic who will try to get as much of the gasoline out of the system as he can. Then you fill up the tank with diesel and hope that everything works fine. If not then you get a quote for replacing the pump and injectors and take it from there.
Putting diesel in a gasoline car is not as big of an issue. The gasoline engine will have a very hard time running on diesel. It might do it if it is warmed up but likely not. And it will never start cold on diesel. There will be a lot of sot as well which will damage components in the exhaust system like the oxygen sensor and catalytic converter. So if your car runs rough or stops after filling diesel on it then you empty the tank of diesel and refill it with gasoline and hope for the best. You do not have to be as careful bleeding out all of it. If you get issues with the oxygen sensor the cars computer will tell you. These are cheap components that are easy to access. So filling diesel on gasoline cars is usually not a death sentence.
Latest Answers