Diesel missfueling E350 cdi

[pridaux]

Hi i drive a E350 sport 2 and a half years old.
Just wonder if anyone can help
last week i went to fill up the car was about 15 miles on reserve and i added 29ltr of petrol before i realised the mistake.
I did not start the car but called the fuel doctor who removed 40lt of fuel until dry we then filled car to the top more than the manual says it takes so we had definatly removed all the fuel.
I have driven 600 miles and refilled again however the car decided to cut out suddenly and stall then when restarted the engine warning light stays on and loss of power so i presume limp home mode.
The Local MB Garage has had the car in and the Computer said faulty fuel pressure switch however after changing this the same has happened again when they where delivering it back to me.
I think this is a coincidence as i cant see how it could be related to the earlier incident as all the fuel was removed and replaced without starting.
Any thaughts from others that may have had the same experience???
Andrew

[mickyveloce]

I've heard of quite a few cars being drained after mis fueling and no reported after effects .
I can't think of a logical problem stemming from the tank being drained that would cause the problems you've described .

[pridaux]

I agree it will be interesting to see if they try and pass the buck and refuse to pay the repair bill will keep you posted such a pain due in wales next week and been given an A class as all there loan cars go back to the leasing company on the 1st of March

[tonys]

This is a very useful forum, if not already aware

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/



Not that PH isn't also very useful

[pridaux]

tonys said:

This is a very useful forum, if not already aware

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/



Not that PH isn't also very useful

Thanks Tony will have a look
Car back today and they have drained tank again and so far seems ok along with changing a fuel pressure switch so another £100 of fuel wasted and the only difference between the 2 fill ups was one LTR of petrol however they have said that even that amount can effect the modern diesels.
They cleaned out tank rather than sucking out like the fuel doctor i still am amazed that 1ltr ie 1.5% petrol to 98.5% diesel can cause the problem.
it was actually rather dangerous as it did not simply go to limp home mode it literally died loosing power steering etc and that was after 500 miles of misfueling ie about 80 miles left in the tank yes i know that the little bit of petrol was probably at the top so was getting there as i was on a country twisty road and having fun but i am still amazed.
It then restarted but engine warning light came on and it was sluggish.
Be Warned and if you miss fuel call MB get recovery to a MB Garage then they can be at fault if its done wrong
Andrew

[mbtech01]

Not wishing to cause any trouble but i thought there was an issue with Cdi injectors on E350cdi's or it may have possibly be the E250cdi that Mercedes have been trying to rectify for some time now. I've heard of numerous cars going back to the dealerships for Safety measure recalls as Mercedes like to call them where complete sets of injectors were being replaced & new wiring looms fitted etc.
This may have no bearing on your cars problems, but it may be worth investigating. If as you say the car was not started & the tank was drained & the filled it should be ok. However in rare cases i have known the fuel tank to still hold a large amount of fuel even when drained in one of the various pockets built into the tank which isn't accessable due the various baffles in the tank & especially a tank like yours which is a saddle tank that has to halfs with a link over the top of the propshaft.

[Deva Link]

pridaux said:

... it literally died loosing power steering etc and that was after 500 miles of misfueling ie about 80 miles left in the tank

You said in the first post that you ran a tank of fuel through, refilled it, and then had probs? Or did the problems srise before the second refill?

I don't know - you hear different stories about mis-fueling, but I'm struggling to imagine a very small amount of fuel would cause an issue. And with fuel injection systems it gets swirled out of, and back to, the tank so gets well mixed.

The only thing I would say you should have done was to keep topping the car up to further dilute the petrol and not run the tank to near empty.

[pridaux]

Deva Link said:

You said in the first post that you ran a tank of fuel through, refilled it, and then had probs? Or did the problems srise before the second refill?

I don't know - you hear different stories about mis-fueling, but I'm struggling to imagine a very small amount of fuel would cause an issue. And with fuel injection systems it gets swirled out of, and back to, the tank so gets well mixed.

The only thing I would say you should have done was to keep topping the car up to further dilute the petrol and not run the tank to near empty.

I agree maybe if i had re filled after half a tank however as i had the tank drained and re filled with 82 LTRS I just did not think if i had put 5 LTRS in and then realised my mistake i would not have drained but filled up with diesel and then refilled when half empty 3 or four times.
We Live and learn and never again yes i agree it does stink????? OF diesel lol

[tonys]

mbtech01 said:

Not wishing to cause any trouble but i thought there was an issue with Cdi injectors on E350cdi's or it may have possibly be the E250cdi that Mercedes have been trying to rectify for some time now. I've heard of numerous cars going back to the dealerships for Safety measure recalls as Mercedes like to call them where complete sets of injectors were being replaced & new wiring looms fitted etc.
This may have no bearing on your cars problems, but it may be worth investigating. If as you say the car was not started & the tank was drained & the filled it should be ok. However in rare cases i have known the fuel tank to still hold a large amount of fuel even when drained in one of the various pockets built into the tank which isn't accessable due the various baffles in the tank & especially a tank like yours which is a saddle tank that has to halfs with a link over the top of the propshaft.

This problem relates to the 4 cylinder C & E 200/250 Blue Efficiencies, not the V6 350 CDi. There are, howver, some reported issues of noisy injectors on some 350s, but not the same thing.

[V40TC]

As unleaded can be added to diesel to stop it waxing I can't imagine it causing further issues after the second drain out.
I used to add unleaded to my Land Rover diesel tank in winter.
granted not a modern Diesel but it never made any difference to the running and stopped the Diesel waxing.

[toby tucker]

Thought I'd add my tu'pence worth to this thread.

Last March my wife put 22 liters of unleaded into our 2012/62 reg Merc 220cdi which had approx 7k miles on the clock. I normally fill the car up myself but on this occasion the tank was on reserve and she needed to put some fuel in to do the weekly shop . After she put in the unleaded , she drove it 8 miles up the dual carriageway to the supermarket, finished shopping and then drove it a further 5 miles back home (so she drove 13 miles in total). When she got back home, she called me at work to tell me that the car was misfiring and took longer than usual to start when she went to drive home from the supermarket !!! I knew what she had done straight away and I told her not to drive the car.

When I got home,I called out the AA (home start) who told me that they get approx 60 miss-fueling call outs/day. The AA relieved me of £211 before a specially adapted AA van would come out to me(I got a £50 discount as an AA member). The AA patrol man came out and pumped out the unleaded via the fuel filler and put in 10 liters of diesel + some additive to clear out the injectors - he was done in 40 mins. The car started instantly with no misfiring or black smoke or fault codes. My car has now done 14k miles and hasn't missed a beat since.

Before departing, the AA man told me that he reckoned he'd attended over 2500 miss-fueling incidents over a 3 year period and he only had problems with 3 cars which he said were mega milers. So forget any BS that a main dealer tells you - you should be able to get it fixed for less than £300.