Got a 2000 1.6 Focus, had a jerry can with about 3 litres of what I thought was petrol in the garage, decided to chuck it in.

There was a 1/4 of a tank of petrol in at the time. I've gone about 50 yards and the car has conked out, went to move off, had no power, it's coughed and spluttered and died and won't restart.

Is diesel denser than petrol and went straight to the bottom of the tank? If that's the case, will I be able to remove the fuel hose at the engine, crank it over a bit, chuck all the diesel out and restart it with whats left of the petrol?

 

It will take ages to get the fuel out and for you to keep cranking.You might have to drop the tank out or less you can get a pump to get the fuel out of the tank.

 

problem I've got is i'm miles away from a petrol station with no access to another car and all my mates and family are working, was hoping it won't have mixed?

 

Correct, the Diesel will sink to the bottom.

You may be able to get away with it by filling up with fuel and so outweighing the Diesel, it's your decision.

Martin

 

Schoolboy error.

 

I'd drop the tank. A pain, but it will end up being the quickest way.

 

I put petrol in my 520d full tank aswell, I pulled the fuel hose in the engine bay and put an old rs turbo pump on it and dragged it out that way, I also syphoned the tank by pushing a hose down and using a wet vac to get enough suck to start it off,

All in worked well for me but your way round I would just try and tank it with petrol and it should be ok I would of thought

 

Whats the best way to drain the tank?

 

I popped into a garage and they thought it should have cut it out, they said 3-4 litres of diesel in a 1/4 tank of unleaded should have been smokey but still run. The engine management light is on, is this normal if the car cuts out because of wrong fuel?

Wondering if it's something else and just a coincidence.

The fuel in it that i've managed to drain from the pump doesn't smell very strong, makes me think it is diesel

 

It won't sink to bottom it will mix mate better off draining it but personally would fill it up and run it!

 

Call the garage you were at, as they might know of a company that can sort this for you. I would have it drained to prevent any damage to injectors etc.

 

It may be fine if you brim it with petrol but I reckon you probably going to have to drain all the fuel out with new fuel filter and spark plugs and get petrol coming through to the fuel rail

 

Fill it to the neck with petrol and you'll likely get away with it.

however, once the tank is done change the oil, and keep an eye on oil levels during usage of that fuel.
Run the tank as empty as possible before filling to the neck again to dilute any remaining diesel as much as possible.

 

There has to be another issue, like you say it won't illuminate the EML, although it may have detected a running fault if it was missing etc I guess.

Best thing is to reset the ECU and try again.

Martin

 

i would loosen the fuel pipe and put it into a tank and bridge the relay so it constantly pumps it all out and start over

 

Why wouldn't it bring on the EML?

 

2000 focus would be pretty basic. Doubftul it will have missfire detection or anything like that.

But obviously if the engine is stopped, which it is, the engine management light will be on.

 

The knock sensor can detect misfires though.

True, I assume OP means it came on when it was running?

Martin

 

As obviously it isn't clever enough to know it has the wrong fuel!

Martin

 

No it cant.

 

If an engine is misfiring then obviously it won't be running smoothly, and so the knock sensor can pick this up.

Martin

 

the car has had a misfire since I've had it, probably a coil pack. never bothered to fix it. I only need the car one more week and then I'm weighing it in for scrap.

the engine management light doesn't go out with the ignition on, thought it should?

I don't think adding more fuel will help, there is already a quarter of a tank in the car and it didn't mix as it did it straight away.

going to drain it out. where is the fuel pump relay?

 

The EML light doesn't go out on ignition ON. It goes out only when you start the engine.

 

petrol/diesel mix burns hotter, this in turn willmelt the cat very quickly which will but the check engine light on as the 02 senser is seeing the cat doing nothing!

 

A knock sensor isnt a smoothness detector.

it is a microphone, and one that is designed to listen over a very narrow range of frequencies. ie knock.

Nothing more, nothing less. It can never, and will never be able to detect misfires.

 

I know what it's job is to detect knock, I just thought that as a misfire would cause knocking in the cylinders, but actually thinking about it, as you say nothing like a frequency pinking would cause, my bad

To the OP, you only have a small quantity of fuel though, by filling with the correct fuel you can probably offset the little of the wrong fuel you have added.

Martin

 

My Focus manages to detect it's misfires?

 

Then as I initally said surely it has to be the knock sensor that does so?

Martin

 

3ltrs!! It will be fine

 

its not starting, would you all recommend adding 10 litres of fuel to what is in there or pour out and replace?

 

I'll repeat in case you missed it.

 

More likely to be detecting the faulty part causing the misfire, such as a fucked coil. Only way to find out would be to plug a fault code reader in!

 

You know, if you have a length of hose and a few buckets you could just siphon as much fuel out of the tank and then fill it up with petrol... Or would that be too easy

 

Just like that I?? You've been watching to many movies. Even if the pipe did go down the filler neck doubt it would reach to where the fuel is as can imagine it's low if he's put fuel input of a can.

 

No it tells you exactley what cylinder there is a misfire.

 

By pressing the button on the ordometer on the clocks.

 

Unless its got an anti siphon device then why not?

I've done it a few time myself, and when I worked on cars with my grandfather he did it all the time when he put the car in the garage for the winter.

Hell, you can even buy hand cranked pumps for the job.

 

That is interesting, I am not quite sure how it knows though.

Martin

 

I think a vtec engine would have handled this foolish mistake, the ford engine is shit tho so unfortunately you've ruined it

Unlucky

 

lift up backseat, remove fuel pump syphon out with a hose, top up with petrol job done