Wrong petrol in the car!!!

[thebullettrain]

Silly I know, but in a moment of madness I put about £4 worth of unleaded in my car. I then topped it with £11 worth of diesel. The car already had an eight of the tank full (about a fiver).

I think I should be okay with this, but does anyone know whether topping up was the right thing to do?

[alan7]

Hi, don't panic - I'm sure everyone's done the same at some time in thier life.

according to my friendly garage & AA man 10:1 ratio shouldn't cause any problems & depending on the car you may get away with 15:1. The 2 don't mix very well as they have different specific gravities so keep topping up every 100 miles or so for about 1500 miles to dilute the mixture.

Alan

[thebullettrain]

Thanks Alan – you've but my mind to rest – I'm only doing some local driving this week, but on the weekend I'm doing a 230 mile round trip so I'll probably fill her up then, that's followed by another 250 trip a couple of days later so that should sort it out!

[busta]

I put £8 worth of petrol in the work Astra Van and then brimmed the tank with diesel to dilute it and never had any problems.
On older diesel engines (e.g. non ecu cars) 10% petrol in the diesel mix can improve the performance slightly. Not sure about the long term effects though.

Bernie

[hugoagogo]

fill it up!
(i can never understand why people don't fill there cars anyway, but surely this is one time you should)

[Roadrunner]

Our local Safeways had a full tanker of diesel fuel put in the unleaded petrol pumps - thus contaminating the lot. Instead of paying for their mistake and emptying the pumps they decided to knowingly sell the lot to the unsuspecting public! Now there are hundreds of cars in my town dealing with insurance hassle over this. I know this was done on purpose as a friend works there. Try not to use Safeways if you can avoid it.