Petrol in a diesel land rover...

[narked]

Just wondering about what sort of damage could be done if a diesel 300tdi Discovery is run on petrol. Wondering as, yesterday, my girlfriend's dad put 42 litres of unleaded into my Discovery accidentally. How he managed it, I'll never know. He has his own 300tdi Discovery, and it cleary says "Diesel" by the filler cap, as does mine. All his cars since the mid 80s have been diesel. Still, he's always forgetting things so maybe he's going (gone?) cenile.

Anyhow, doesn't really matter much as we've emptied the tank and refilled it with diesel anyway, but just wondered what sort of effect it would have had had we just topped the tank up with diesel (it was nearly empty before he put the petrol in) and run it regardless.

Cheers

[codprawn]

50/50 wouldn't have done it any good but 10% or 20% wouldn't have done any damage - should have just chucked a load of cooking oil in there!!!

[RAD]

One of the TV car programs (5th gear/top gear) did this on an old ford i think. It worked fine as if nothing had happened. The fuel consumption i think improved!!

[BogMonster]

It will run like a bucket of bolts but as long as you don't drive it too far it will survive. One of "my beloved customers" filled up an old 2.5 naturally asthmatic diesel Defender with petrol a few years back, drove it around for about four days and then bought it in because "it was smoking a bit and would only do 25mph". New set of injector nozzles, filter and a good clean through the fuel system and it was as good as new!

It is not uncommon in some parts of the world to thin diesel with 5 or 10% kerosene in cold temps, but you shouldn't thin it too much as the injector pump relies on the oiliness of diesel for internal lubrication and a "dry" fuel will cause massive internal wear and eventual failure.

Don't even think of putting petrol in a modern common rail diesel engine because the high pressure pumps really don't like it much. I believe LR insist on replacing EVERYTHING in the fuel system if somebody does it on a new vehicle now, or no warranty at all on the engine.