Sir, that's diesel...

[blas]

Saw a real winner at the Shell station this morning.

I was pumping away, and some guy pulls up to the diesel pump. I figured maybe he didn't notice, so when he got out, I politely said "Sir, that's the diesel pump."

He apparently is one of those cavemen type men. All he did was grumble some type of gobblydeguck of what were supposed to be words, and then he half grunted, half harummphed.

I figured ok then, moron, go ahead and fill your Ford Taurus with diesel and see what happens.

As he was just about to start pumping, he finally read the "Diesel" label and then grunted and grumbled, got back into his car, tried (keyword: tried) to screech his tires, and pulled up to the pump next to me and gave me the stink eye.

Unfortunately, he ended up line behind me at the register. Wow was he just creepy and mean.

That's the last time I'm ever helping anyone.

[Gawdzillers]

Sounds like a story I heard about two fools who siphoned jet fuel into their gas tank.
Long story short, it killed them both a mile down the road.

Anyway, after he put the diesel in, how did he get it out?

[blas]

He never pumped the diesel. He finally read the sign after ignoring me.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Anyway, after he put the diesel in, how did he get it out?

He wouldn't. The car would die almost instantly and have to be towed to a mechanic to get the automotive equivalent of an enema.

Wanna know how I know? My dad did it once. Don't tell anyone.

[Acolyte]

My Mom did that, too. Thankfully, she's good friends with our mechanic.

[Hotfoot]

Sounds like a story I heard about two fools who siphoned jet fuel into their gas tank.
Long story short, it killed them both a mile down the road.

Anyway, after he put the diesel in, how did he get it out?

That story, by the way, is more fun than fact. Jet fuel (avgas) is actually less volatile than regular gasoline, not more so. It will burn and potentially work in a car, but the worst that will likely happen is that they'll destroy their catalytic converter because avgas has lead in it.

At least, that's what I understand from Mythbusters and Snopes.

[wolfie]

Actually, jet fuel and avgas are completely different. Avgas is gasoline (100 octane leaded), and will (sort of) work in cars with spark-ignition engines, but destroy the catalytic converter.

There are a number of different jet fuels, with Jet A being the most common. It's pretty similar to kerosene, and I've heard of people with access to sump fuel (when fuel is drained from an aircraft for maintenance purposes, it isn't allowed to be put back into a plane) burning it in diesel engines (need a good slug of lubricity additive like Howe's).

[Rahmota]

Putting gas in a diesel causes engine to stop working and tank to be cleaned and drained and fuel pump replaced. How do i know I did that at the dealership one day when i was rushing and not paying attention.

Fortunately the nozzle for diesel is larger than the one for gas (at least on most of the pumps I'm aware of around here) so its harder to do the reverse but it would be just as bad and just as not working engine would be the result.....

And yeah avgas will work in an older carbureted car with spark plugs you can adjust as one of my friends used to use it in his dirt track car because its over 100 octane and he could get a hold of it cheaper than he could regular racing gas. Putting it in a regular car that doesnt have a computer controlled system or ECM wouldnt do much other than clean it out and burn out the cat. Might also make the plugs fail quicker. Possibly do more than that depending on the engine and stuff. Put it in a car that has an ECM is a very bad idea as unfortunate thigns will happen.

Jet Fuel is a lot closer to deisel or kerosene like was mentioned by wolfie but has some other properties that make it burn and flow differently.

As for Blas's OP: Well maybe hethought he had one of them flex fuel hybrid Tauri....

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That's the last time I'm ever helping anyone.

Not everyone one a knuckle dragging neandertal. Don't let nasty, unhappy people turn you into a nasty, unhappy person, too. You didn't help him because he was deserving, you did it because you are nice.

Keep being nice. You deserve to be nice.

[crazylegs]

Never put petrol in a diesal car, people at work *keep* doing it and they *keep* writing off cars, now the chief has made it a disciplinary offence as he's fed up of looking at repair bills!

[edible_hat]

I used to work at a site that had an avgas pump. It was $1 a liter more than regular, so we required people to pay a deposit for the key for the pump. Most people who used it would have been better off using regular unleaded and saving up the extra money to buy a decent car.

[Rahmota]

Never put petrol in a diesal car

Or diesal in a gas car. Yeah bad things do tend to happen in that case. At the dealership they took a chunk of change out of your pocket if you screwed the pooch like that a second time. 1st time was a write up, second was 80 bucks, third was fired and 100$. Kinda encouraged paying attention.

Most people who used it would have been better off using regular unleaded and saving up the extra money to buy a decent car.

Probably. I've never paid attention to avgas prices as I've used regular gas or ethanol.

[VenomX]

We dont sell diesal but a customer was telling me about a woman that he seen the other day at the local Get-Go. She was at the diesal pump with a hammer forcing the nozzle into her car.

She wouldnt listen to him or the others and they had to end up removing the nozzle from the pump and calling a tow truck to tow her car because the nozzle wouldnt come back out.

[wolfie]

What happens when you put diesel in a spark-ignition car: Diesel is less volatile, so it doesn't vapourize properly, and won't ignite. Cost to repair: draining and flushing the fuel system, and disposing of the mixed fuel (hazardous waste).

What happens when you put gas in a diesel: Straight gas (i.e. filling up an almost empty tank) is actually less harmful than a 50/50 mix. With straight gas, it doesn't have a high enough cetane rating to reliably self-ignite, so the engine won't run. Repair costs similar to diesel in a spark-ignition car. With a 50/50 mix, there's enough diesel so that it will ignite, and the engine will (sort of) run. Unfortunately, on many diesel engines (including the VW TDI), the insides of the high-pressure pump are lubricated by the fuel, and gasoline is a cleaner rather than a lubricant. Add a high-pressure pump (4 figure price tag, or more, depending on the engine) to the repair cost.

Not all jet fuel is created equal. Jet A is basically kerosene, so with a lubricity additive (a cetane booster is also a good idea) you can use it in a diesel. Jet B is naptha-based, and does bad things to diesel engines. Jet turbines can pretty much use them interchangeably.

Fortunately the nozzle for diesel is larger than the one for gas (at least on most of the pumps I'm aware of around here) so its harder to do the reverse but it would be just as bad and just as not working engine would be the result.....

Gas and diesel nozzles used to (up to the '70s) be the same size. When catalytic converters were introduced, they needed unleaded gas (lead kills cats). Since unleaded was more expensive than leaded, there was a need to keep people from using the cheaper gas (this was before the days of ECMs, so killing the cat didn't affect performance, just emissions). This was done by putting a restrictor in the filler neck (the piece of sheet metal you see when you take off the gas cap), and using a smaller nozzle for unleaded. The nozzle for leaded fuel was too big to fit through the restrictor. Since diesel has always been unleaded, there was no need to change the nozzle size. Theoretically they could have gone to a smaller nozzle with the switch from conventional (2000 PPM sulphur) to low-sulphur (500 PPM) some years back, or from low-sulphur to ultra-low sulphur (15 PPM - needed to avoid killing the particulate filters on 2007 and later engines), but the smaller nozzle would restrict the flow too much when filling up a big rig (a pair of 140 gallon tanks is common).

[texasbelle5]

Back when I worked for a home furnishings showroom, the company delivered. It was a 24' box which ran on diesel.

Big signs on and near where you put the fuel in DIESEL ONLY A different sized fuel slot. Still, some of our mental midget delivery drivers managed to, on 2 separate occasions, put unleded fuel into a diesel truck.

An enema is what it took. And yes the boss fired the morons. For utter stupidity.