Expert Sergey FEDOROV answers This happens: despite the presence of warning labels on the gas tank flap about what fuel is used in your car, and different diameters of the “barrels” of filling nozzles for gasoline and diesel, dozens of cars with a diagnosis of “fuel use” hang up in the services every month not specified by the manufacturer." Anyway. What is done is done. First, let's look at the chemistry of the process. When the "diesel fuel" enters the gas tank, it immediately sinks down to the very bottom. Since the density of diesel fuel is noticeably higher than gasoline. This means that it almost immediately enters the line, then into the fuel pump and injection nozzles. That is, the driver will immediately feel the first signs of something wrong - interruptions and knocks in the engine, loss of dynamics and jerks in motion, and outside this is accompanied by black smoke from the exhaust pipe. In this situation, the main thing is to identify the error as soon as possible. If you catch yourself at the gas station, then you can say that you will get off with little blood: order a tow truck and take your swallow to the service. There they will remove the fuel tank, wash it and put it in its place. Actually, that's all. In no case do not agree to flush the entire fuel line, filters and injectors. This is pure divorce - diesel fuel in such a situation has not yet managed to get even to the fuel pump. Worse, when the driver suspects something was wrong, when the engine has already managed to pretty much take a sip of diesel fuel. Then the car must be evacuated to the technical center for resuscitation. In this case, restoration of performance may require decent money. Since, in addition to flushing the tank and the fuel pump located in it, filters and injection nozzles may be at risk. Although there is a high probability that unscrupulous servicemen can charge you money for replacing parts that are actually still quite functional. It is also very important to know how much gasoline was before the ill-fated refueling. If you arrive at a gas station with a warning light on, the engine will stall immediately after the ignition is turned on. Therefore, there will be no serious consequences for him. The compression ratio of the engine and the spark plug will not be enough to ignite diesel fuel.
But when you dilute half a tank of gasoline with a dozen liters of diesel fuel, the engine will still start. In the meantime, the car is lucky, all the elements of the power system will become clogged with this hellish mixture. Moreover, long-term operation on a gasoline-solar cocktail will inevitably lead to engine breakdown. The fact is that Russian diesel fuel contains a lot of paraffin, which clogs not only the main line and the fuel pump, but also filter membranes and injector nozzles. It is not uncommon for the owner to realize the “substitution” at the beginning of the refueling process, and there was a lot of fuel in the tank - say, for 40 liters of gasoline there were several liters of diesel fuel. It is likely that with this alignment, the motor will feel almost nothing. However, as the resulting mixture develops, fill the tank to the maximum with gasoline, preferably with a higher octane rating. And so you do until you feel that all the "diesel fuel" has already been worked out. As you can see, the devil is not as terrible as he is painted - an error during refueling is not as tragic as it might seem. And if you recognize it in time, then the damage from the wrong step will be minimal. Most importantly, listen to your car. And further. It will not be good for the engine even if you pour gasoline into a diesel car. We will talk about what to do in such cases next time.
Any car owner knows how to distinguish a diesel vehicle from a gasoline-powered one. Some "diesel" tanks even have special necks that do not "let in" gasoline filling nozzles. However, all this does not stop inattentive car owners and not very responsible gas station workers who manage to shove the unimpressed just to get rid of the client faster.
It often happens that a motorist simply moved from a gasoline passenger car to a diesel SUV and, out of habit, filled in his favorite fuel. If this happens, then you should not panic ahead of time and tearfully count the losses. Although gasoline and diesel fuel are fundamentally different, the damage is not always so great.
What can happen
In a diesel engine, the fuel is supplied separately from the air mixture, which is highly compressed. Diesel fuel enters the cylinders as a result of pressure at the very end of the air compression. At the next stage, the fuel is split into tiny particles and sprayed in the chamber, spontaneously igniting from compressed air. In this case, the largest amount of fuel burns out even before the piston reaches the so-called top dead center. If the fuel mixture begins to ignite earlier (without the necessary delay), this will disrupt the operation of the motor.
Just in gasoline-type units, air is mixed with fuel even in the intake manifold, and only then the mixture enters the cylinders. Ignition is carried out by a spark plug, which creates a spark at the right time.
An important point is the different indicators of fuel mixtures. One of the most important characteristics of gasoline is its octane number. It means how much the liquid is able to withstand too rapid ignition. For a diesel engine, the main characteristic is the cetane number, which shows how quickly the fuel can ignite. The higher the octane number, respectively, the lower the cetane will be. This will lead to the fact that the delay before ignition of the fuel increases markedly. As a result, the motorist will begin to hear a knock in the engine, notice a drop in efficiency and a sharp increase in the operating temperature of the power unit.
If gasoline is poured into the tank of a diesel engine, then a lot depends on when exactly the driver noticed such an oversight.
If the movement on gasoline instead of diesel has not yet begun
If you managed to understand your mistake in time, then first of all you need to evaluate how much "wrong" fuel got into the tank. If the volume of the container is 50 and less than 10 liters of gasoline is poured into it, then there is a chance to try to do without a tow truck. To do this, you need to fill the rest of the tank with diesel to the brim and start moving, avoiding high speeds.
Healthy! On the road, you need to monitor the "behavior" of the motor. If it does not work stably, then it is better to stop, turn off the engine and call a car service employee.
When the gas tank is ¼ empty, you need to go to the gas station again and add diesel fuel (again to a full tank). This must be repeated until the entire tank is cleaned of gasoline.
Healthy! If the car has twice as much gasoline as diesel fuel and the car owner does not take any measures, then the car will still be able to continue its movement. But, after a few thousand kilometers, you will have to replace the filters and repair the fuel line.
However, experts do not advise resorting to such a complex method. If the movement on the “wrong” fuel has not yet begun, then you must immediately drain all the gasoline. After that, 2 liters of diesel fuel are poured into the tank and the liquid is drained again. Only then can you fill up the car and hit the road. This is the easiest way to clean.
Some "experienced" in such cases pour oil for two-stroke diesel engines into the gas tank in the proportion of 40-50 ml per liter of mistakenly filled gasoline. Also suitable are special additives that increase the cetane number of the mixture. However, this method is also quite controversial and does not guarantee the normal operation of the machine.
Healthy! If oil and additives are used, they must be added to the tank until it is completely filled. Then they will mix with the fuel fluid and will work better.
But, it is far from always possible to notice an oversight "on the spot". Sometimes even when the engine "hints" to problems, some refer to the poor quality of the fuel mixture and continue driving.
If the movement on gasoline has already begun
If the driver arrived at the gas station already “on a light bulb” and filled in a full tank of the “wrong” fuel, then the gasoline will inevitably immediately go to the engine. In this case, it will turn out to drive such a car for several kilometers, after which the power unit will stall. If everything happens so fast, then it all depends on the "endurance" of the car.
For example, owners of tractors or KamAZ trucks even practice mixing gasoline with diesel fuel in winter. There is an opinion that if you add 8-10% gasoline to the "native" mixture, then the fuel will not lose its fluidity. However, if nothing happens with such units, then a modern diesel passenger car, as the manufacturers themselves say, will need:
- Remove all fuel from the gas tank.
- Check the booster pump (its clip).
- If no metal chips have formed in it, then drain the fuel from the system.
- Completely flush the power system and change the fuel filters.
The last point is more often imposed by employees of service centers. In fact, it is usually enough to drain the tank and fill it with the required diesel fuel. The situation is slightly different if there is diesel fuel in the gasoline tank.
If you accidentally filled in diesel fuel instead of gasoline
If there is diesel fuel in an empty gas tank, then the manipulations to add the desired composition will not work. The fact is that diesel fuel has a higher density, so no matter how much the car owner adds the “correct” fuel, diesel fuel will still sink to the bottom of the tank and travel along the fuel line. Therefore, having driven a few meters from the gas station, the driver will notice knocks in the engine and black smoke coming from the muffler. After that, the vehicle will simply stop and stop showing signs of life. The good news is that this happens so quickly that it cannot harm the power unit. In this situation, it is better not to experiment and not spare money for the spent fuel. It is necessary to clean the tank of diesel fuel and fill in the correct type of fuel.
The situation is worse if the owner of the vehicle arrived at the gas station not “empty” and filled in half a tank of diesel fuel. In such a case, the vehicle can drive a couple of kilometers, but this is enough to clog the filters and engine nozzles. If for some reason the car owner does not notice changes in the operation of the car, then after a longer drive there will be a risk of damage to the power unit, which will stop synchronizing the cylinders normally. In addition, paraffin is present in diesel fuel. It clogs filter membranes and lines very quickly. Especially actively destruction occurs in winter frosts. Therefore, you should not bring it to this, as the consequences can be disastrous.
Car owners often give in to habits and put the gun in the tank without looking. Errors happen when traveling abroad, where often diesel fuel is not highlighted. In some places they write the unambiguous Diesel, and in other countries they use the word Petroleum with digital designations, which is also typical for gasoline. In general, you have to clarify and look at both. There are two types of error. Diesel fuel can be poured into a gasoline unit, and vice versa, gasoline can be poured into a heavy fuel engine. Let's consider both.
Diesel fuel in gasoline
When diesel fuel enters the tank of a gasoline unit, the fuel is stratified into fractions. The density of gasoline is less, so it goes up, and diesel fuel goes down to the neck of the highway and is sucked into the engine. As soon as a mixture enriched with diesel fuel is injected into the combustion chambers, the engine will begin to experience interruptions in operation. Heavy fuel is designed for a different way of ignition. It reacts poorly to spark. In addition, the compression ratio in gasoline engines is one and a half times less than that of diesel engines. As a result, the fuel simply does not explode and the engine troit, and then stalls. Candles form carbon deposits. Part of the diesel fuel flows through the piston group into the crankcase with oil. In general, it is impossible not to notice such behavior of the motor.
In this case, you must stop in a safe place and call a tow truck to deliver the car to the service. There they pump out diesel fuel from the tank, put new candles and wash the injection nozzles. Then you will need to change the oil in the engine due to the ingress of diesel fuel and buy fuel filters. Most likely, the exhaust converter and its sensors will still fail.
In general, nothing catastrophic for the machine will happen, except for the loss of time for flushing procedures. However, if you persist and start the engine until you're blue in the face, forcing it to run on unusual fuel, you can ruin the valves. If the car does not want to go, then it is better not to force it to do so.
Gasoline instead of diesel
But when pouring gasoline into a diesel unit, it all depends on the ratio of this additive. The diesel unit was originally developed as a multi-fuel engine. Previously, it was even allowed, if it was impossible to find winter diesel fuel, to dilute heavy fuel with gasoline or kerosene to a ratio of 50/50%.
But when more gasoline gets into the diesel engine, and even high-octane, serious problems can occur. The combustion temperature of gasoline is much higher, so the temperature in the combustion chambers will rise many times, and the power of the power unit will drop. It will seem to the driver that the diesel fuel is of poor quality, and he will begin to give gas even more. As a result, overheating will occur, and as a result, problems with the mechanics. And this will require a change of valves, pistons, heads, gaskets.
In addition, modern cars are mostly equipped with a common rail injection system that requires internal lubrication. Gasoline does not have these properties. As a result, this extremely expensive node also fails.
In general, the first thing to do when detecting abnormal engine behavior and an increase in its temperature is to remove the fuel tank cap and smell if it smells of gasoline.
But diesel is good in that problems can be avoided if an error is detected in a timely manner. For example, when a small amount of foreign fuel is poured into the tank, it can be diluted with oil for two-stroke internal combustion engines at the rate of 30-50 ml per liter of gasoline. And then add a full tank of diesel fuel there. If gasoline is less than 10%, then this is not at all critical, and the motor will easily digest the additive. But if there is more than half of gasoline, then forced draining is indispensable. One thing pleases - that gasoline does not clog the fuel line, but rather cleans it. Therefore, when changing fuel, only new filters will have to be installed.
So, you've just poured gasoline into your diesel engine. What will happen now? Will it work or just explode?
No, indeed, the motor will not explode and will work, but not for long. In simple terms, pouring gasoline into a diesel engine will severely damage it, even if the engine manages to run for a while.
But why does it damage the engine? The fact is that gasoline and diesel are by-products of oil and to answer this question, we need to understand how these two types of engines work, namely a gasoline engine and a diesel engine.
What to do if someone accidentally pours gasoline into a diesel engine?
The problem is that gasoline fuel is formulated in such a way that it resists self-ignition, just like diesel fuel does. Gasoline will cause the diesel vehicle to fail to burn fuel in the correct sequence and if it manages to burn the fuel, mixture detonation will occur irregularly. The pistons and piston levers are designed in such a way that they can withstand a fuel explosion if the explosion occurs in a timely manner. Gasoline in a diesel engine will burn fuel at the wrong time and can damage these parts.
In addition, gasoline can quickly destroy the fuel pump. The fuel pump for diesel fuel is slightly different from gasoline, as the diesel acts as a lubricant for the fuel pump. Gasoline will dry out the fuel part and without lubrication, the moving parts will rub against each other and eventually fail, as is the case with an engine with any oil.
When a diesel engine is started, it causes gasoline to circulate in the lines and the engine, causing sensitive parts to fail and the fuel pump to stop working. If a car with the wrong fuel won't start, damage can be prevented, and flushing the fuel tank can save you thousands of dollars in replacing damaged parts.
If you realize you have poured gasoline into your diesel engine, shut it down immediately and have your vehicle towed to a shop for a fuel change.
Comparison of diesel and gasoline engine
Both types of engine, petrol and diesel, operate somewhat similarly. Both have pistons, cylinders, fuel lines, pressure lines, and both require oil, and burn a mixture of air and fuel to operate. While both engine types are largely the same, the significant difference between them is the method of ignition of this air/fuel mixture. This difference is everything that distinguishes a gasoline and diesel engine.
Gasoline engines
Gasoline engines work in the same way as diesel engines, except they accept gasoline as fuel. Fuel is supplied through pressure pipes, and then goes into the engine itself. Depending on the fuel injection method, some vehicles may use a carburetor to supply fuel to the engine, while modern vehicles currently use electronic injection methods.
Gasoline engines have what we call spark plugs to ignite the air-fuel mixture. Depending on the number of cylinders in an engine, there may be 3 or more spark plugs. If the car is a V-8, there will be 8 cylinders and 8 spark plugs for each of the cylinders. The timing belt causes the camshaft to rotate so that each cylinder ignites the mixture at the right time, making the ignition of the fuel in each of the 8 cylinders smooth and keeping the engine in balance.
Note: It should be noted here that gasoline engines use spark plugs to ignite the fuel. It has to do with the compression ratio of the gasoline. Once the gasoline is sufficiently compressed during a cycle, the mixture becomes hot and the spark plugs produce a quick spark to ignite this mixture, creating power.
Diesel engines
These engines do not need spark plugs to ignite the fuel and the difference here is in the type of fuel. Diesel blocks use a compression ratio that is much higher than gasoline engines. It is basic knowledge that when air is compressed, it tends to heat up. Similarly, diesel compresses much more than gasoline, which heats up the fuel so much that the diesel in the cylinders self-ignites without requiring a spark plug.
This is why diesel burns at a much higher temperature than gasoline, so diesel cannot be ignited by spark plugs due to lack of heat. This is what causes diesel engines to make this knock during operation as the diesel explodes at a higher temperature.
Diesel fuel vs gasoline fuel
Both of these fuels are by-products of crude oil with little difference in chemical properties. Both of these fuels are hydrocarbon chains. The only difference is that there are more of them in diesel fuel, which makes diesel less volatile compared to gasoline. A gasoline engine compresses gasoline at a ratio of 8:1, which can range up to 12:1. A diesel engine, however, compresses diesel fuel at a higher ratio of 14:1 and can go as high as 25:1. This causes diesel vehicles to produce much more power compared to gasoline engines.
To prevent the error, the size of the diesel filling injectors in the pumps is larger compared to the gasoline injectors, making it difficult to fill diesel into gasoline engines, but on the other hand, the problem remains.
Gasoline in a diesel car
Since gasoline and diesel are two completely different types of fuel, you may experience many symptoms if you put gasoline in your diesel engine. Below is a list of the most common symptoms you usually get after you fill up a diesel engine with gasoline:
The most common symptoms of gasoline in diesel vehicles are engine knocking, rough idle and acceleration, engine warning light, and the car may stop and not start again. Therefore, never drive your car with gasoline in a diesel tank. Shut off the engine as soon as possible and have it towed to an auto repair shop or garage. Drain the petrol tank, replace the fuel filter and refill it with diesel fuel.
1- Check engine light
Because modern car engines are so smart, they often recognize when you've poured gasoline into a diesel engine. This often results in a light on the car's dashboard.
2- Knock from the engine
Because gasoline is much more flammable than diesel fuel, you may hear a loud "knocking" noise from the engine that wasn't there before. If you put some gasoline in your diesel tank, you may not hear a knock, but this is a good sign if you suspect you have filled up with gas.
3- Rough idle and acceleration
The vehicle may experience rough idle and rapid acceleration when you fill your diesel tank with gasoline.
4- Engine stops and does not start
In many cases, if you fill up with a lot of gasoline, your engine may stop and you will not be able to start it. If so, it can lead to costly repairs if you're unlucky.
Remember that since gasoline does not have the same lubricating properties as diesel fuel, this can cause serious damage to your diesel pump. A faulty diesel pump can cause metal chips to fall out and fill the entire fuel system. In this case, you often have to replace the entire fuel system, including hoses and fuel lines.
It can also damage internal parts of the motor such as pistons if you're unlucky. This happens quite rarely, and the most commonly damaged thing is the diesel pump, which leads to the formation of metal chips throughout the fuel system.
What should I do if my diesel car is filled with gasoline?
If you think you have gas in your diesel tank, the first thing you should do is stop your car in a safe place and turn off the engine as soon as possible. If you are standing at a gas station and have not yet started your engine, do not start the car!
After you have drained all the gasoline from the tank, change the fuel filter and refill the tank with diesel fuel. Then start your car and try again, many cars will need to bleed the diesel fuel system before you can start it.
By following these steps, you will be able to save the engine, and it will be saved in 90% of cases. Under some circumstances, if you drive too far with too much gasoline in the tank, your diesel pump can be damaged and this will cause the entire fuel system to be replaced as the pump fills it with metal shavings.
Conclusion
Gasoline and diesel are two completely different fuels and you will notice a lot of strange symptoms if you have gas in a diesel car.
If you realize you filled it with gasoline, stop the car in a safe place, turn off the engine and take it to a workshop.
If you notice at a gas station that you are filling up with the wrong fuel, do not start your car. Have it towed to the workshop.
Gasoline in a diesel engine will damage your diesel pump, which can fill the fuel system with metal shavings and damage the entire fuel system. This can lead to costly repairs in excess of $10,000.
Answer to the question “What happens to a gasoline engine if diesel fuel is poured into it?”, probably, 99.99% of motorists will not cause difficulty *.
* True, it’s worth making a small digression that there are 0.01% of “witnesses of the miraculous diesel fuel” (I personally saw the threads on the forums), where inexperienced motorists seriously argue that if you pour diesel fuel into a gasoline engine, it will become . So they wrote, they say, advise, is it true or a myth that if I fill my gasoline-powered car with diesel fuel, it will consume less fuel? This is what local jokers advised them ... Horror is simple!
For everyone else who is friends with logic and perfectly understands what such experiments can lead to, it is obvious that such an execution will obviously not be good for a gasoline engine. Only one question remains to be answered: will the consequences be catastrophic? Here the opinions of the autobrothers are clearly divided.
One part will assume that the engine will instantly stall or the car will simply not start. Others will say that the car will theoretically be able to drive some distance, perhaps even continue to work on diesel fuel, but the consequences will be so catastrophic that it will be necessary to flush not only the fuel system, but also “capitalize” the engine. Still others will probably put forward a neutral version, something in between... and so on and so forth. There can be many opinions. But what will actually happen?
In order to find out, we turned to knowledgeable people and to numerous Internet portals competent in matters of motor skills.
The first thing the mechanics warn about: gasoline and diesel fuel are combustible mixtures that are completely different in their chemical structure. If gasoline consists of light hydrocarbons, the main feature of which is easy ignition (not for nothing that gasoline engines use electric spark plugs that ignite a mixture of fuel and air), then diesel fuel will simply be impossible to ignite from a spark. And it's easy to check.
Anyone who has a house in a village or in a dacha has probably come across such a situation: you need to light a fire from the tops collected the day before. The weed has not completely dried out yet, and there is no time to wait for the “weather by the sea”. In order for the fire to start, you need a catalyst. As a "dope" you can use kerosene or gasoline. It is enough to irrigate the organic matter a little, strike a match and, from a safe distance, throw it onto a surface moist with fuel. The result will be instant: the combustible mixture will instantly ignite, and things will go like clockwork.
But it happens that only diesel fuel is at hand. Experienced people know that they will have to tinker with it for some time to set it on fire. And when the fire nevertheless spreads to diesel, it will spread slowly over the wet surface, gradually capturing the entire area of \u200b\u200bthe future fire.
The same will happen in a gasoline internal combustion engine with the only important difference - technically the process will be somewhat more complicated.
Let's take a look at what happens when you fill a gasoline engine with diesel fuel.
1. It won't be easy for you to do this. The diesel “pistol” at the gas station is wider in diameter than its gasoline counterpart (the diameter of the diesel “sting” is 25 mm, the diameter of the gasoline one is 21 mm), that is, it will be impossible to place a “diesel” hose into the filler neck of a gasoline car tank. Or rather, it is almost impossible, because for any cunning lock there is a scattered “cracker”, and it is not for nothing that, according to statistics, every year thousands of people manage to fill their cars with the wrong fuel.
Therefore, if the sting does not fit into the neck, this is a clear sign that you have mixed up the hose. Stop and double-check if the pistol says "DT" on it.
2. If you still manage to fill the fuel, the following will happen:
Even if the fuel in the gas tank was at a minimum, the engine will work for some time. It will start, the car will even drive away from the gas station, but at that time an irreversible process of mixing two types of fuel will take place in the gas tank, or rather, one - denser (DF) - will fall, and gasoline will float to the surface. The fact is that diesel fuel is a heavier fraction, and it will begin its journey to the lowest point of the gas tank, from where foreign fuel will begin to flow into the engine through a mesh fuel supply pipe using a gasoline pump.
If there was a lot of gasoline in the gas tank, this process will take a little more time, but the result will be the same.
Further, extraneous noises will appear in the engine - it will start knocking. The car will lose momentum, it will practically not respond to pressing the gas pedal, it will begin to shake, with every meter the engine will strive to stall, and black smoke will pour out of the exhaust pipe.
More and more diesel fuel will flow into the cylinders, and very soon the car will stall. I think you have already guessed why this happened. We gave an example about fires above. It's just that diesel fuel cannot be ignited by a spark, and the compression ratio of a gasoline power unit is not enough to ignite heavy fuel (11.1: 1 or 14: 1 for gasoline engines versus 18-22: 1 for diesel units).
This is where the journey ends, and sad everyday life begins.
What to prepare for after "treating" a gasoline engine with diesel fuel?
Again, everything will depend on the will of His Majesty the case. If you're lucky, at a car service flush the fuel system from residual fuel. Will definitely replace fuel filters , since an oily coating will remain on them, and the paraffins that the solarium is rich in will clog the nets and membranes of the cleaning device. Not without cleaning motor injectors or carburetor and replacements spark plugs . Plus, you will have to drain all the fuel from the gas tank and rinse it. That's if you're lucky.
If not, the mechanics will take over. With medium damage to the engine, Change of oil , into which diesel fuel can seep through the cylinders and out of oil filter .
Well, if you ignore the shocks and uneven operation of the machine, you will need power unit up to the overhaul.
That's it. Straight out of a Thousand and One Nights...
