What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
I've been accused of misfuelling a rental car - how many miles can you theoretically drive after misfuelling?
I'm in dispute with a car rental provider who want to sue me for a small fortune. They allege I filled up a diesel car with petrol but some things are not adding up. Is it possible to drive a car for 60+ miles if you put petrol in a diesel engine because that's how far I travelled after filling up? The dashboard came up with a catastrophic engine failure warning light and then died on me. But 60 miles on the wrong fuel? Every article that I have read says the engine will conk within a couple of miles.
Asked on 28 October 2021 by Anthony Brown
Answered by
Dan Powell
It's theoretically possible. For example, if the car had a significant level of diesel in the tank when you filled up with petrol then the car could have travelled 60+ miles without a problem, with the petrol floating on top of the diesel until it reached the fuel pick-up point.
Tags:
misfuelling
renting a car
Similar questions
We were due to go to Spain for a week last August until travel restrictions forced us to postpone to the end of June/start of July this year.
When booking our car last August we had booked a mini class...
My son has a 5 year old diesel car and told me that he had a half tank full (about 28 litres) of premium diesel in it and then went to top up to full but accidentally put about 4 litres of petrol in. After...
Elsewhere on 
.jpg)
