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2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Melly Goldsman

I am thinking of buying another used car. The car I have is my first diesel, Santa Fe.

I nearly misfulled the car several times and worry about it. Reading about the problems puts me off but hoping on buying a big jeep.

Can I tell if a used car was misfelled the year or two before via some simple test as reading the forums it is scary. Then I am reading people bought a used car with extended warranty but this is not honoured as checks find traces of petrol in a diesel car. I have read supermarket takns can be contaminated. What is true please rather than hearsay, etc.

Btw, the Grand Cherokee is diesel only and not sure re SRT but that is not for me.

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - sammy1

If you are that worried then buy an electric car

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Andrew-T

Stop worrying and just engage brain for a few seconds when fuelling: check the car's filler (it usually says DIESEL if that's the case); look at the pump - green hose for petrol, black for diesel. The diesel nozzle is too fat to go in a petrol tank filler too.

SWMBO and I have lived with one petrol and one diesel car for many years and haven't misfuelled yet. It's not rocket science.

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - gordonbennet

No you can't tell if a car has been misfuelled, if its running well that's all you can judge it on.

Best advice is to research long and hard any potential purchase before you decide to even view one, let alone what so many people do, buy blind and then when the thing starts pegging out weeks or months later they find they bought a car known for being unreliable and costing a fortune to fix and then seek for ways to reject the horrid thing.

As above, just take your time at the pumps, but apparently you can buy some aftermarket fitments now that won't allow you to misfuel, i haven't bought one so can't help, but i suspect someone will be long shortly with a handy link aiming to sell such a device here.

Edited by gordonbennet on 17/09/2020 at 23:29

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Bolt

There was a thread on this 2009 but I think you can get these as I is still linked to makers

https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=78151

It can happen to anyone when they get distracted, I know several people that have done it and can say I nearly got caught out in a garage on IOW as pump pipes were different colours

HTHs

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Ethan Edwards

Don't take the Green is petrol Derv is black too much to heart. If you drive in Australia on holiday. Its exactly the opposite. Green for derv. Guess everything is opposite down under. Nearly slipped up, bit of jet lag assuming I knew all about it. Luckily the nozzle wouldn't go in . Close thing though.

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - catsdad

If you are really concerned about this, buy a car with manufacturer fitted mis-fuelling device. My 2009 Mondeo had this and no doubt others now fit something similar.

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Melly Goldsman

Thank you to those that tried to help. I saw the Mondeo thread via Google search.

My question which has been misunderstood. Question is, if I was to by a used car and this had been driven on petrol instead of diesel and then wrong fule cleared out and no faults at the time, i was to by that car with a warranty, etc and then the problems showed up like a faulty injector, dpf etc, can things go wrong after a mis-fuel 2 years down the road and will the warrnty people avoid the claim by saying the car was misfuled at some point?

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Andrew-T

My question which has been misunderstood. Question is, if I was to by a used car and this had been driven on petrol instead of diesel and then wrong fule cleared out and no faults at the time, i was to by that car with a warranty, etc and then the problems showed up like a faulty injector, dpf etc, can things go wrong after a mis-fuel 2 years down the road and will the warranty people avoid the claim by saying the car was misfuled at some point?

Apologies for misreading earlier query. But in the scenario you propose, 1) it's probably impossible to verify an earlier misfuel episode and 2) after 2 years no warranty would cover any such event even if it could be proved. It could be a valid explanation, that's all.

Most misfuel episodes make a car undriveable so they have to be sorted immediately. Hence permanent damage is unlikely IMHO.

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - gordonbennet

As Andrew answered, no one would be able to tell conclusively if misfuelling had happened 2 years down the line.

As for warranty claims, it's more than likely that an aftermarket warranty will wriggle out of an expensive claim anyway, the warranties to generally trust are those provided from new for long periods, ie Kia Hyundai Toyota who make vehicles of the sort you are considering, or to buy approved used from a franchised dealer where the warranty (often extendable) will be as good as on the new car.

It might be interesting for you to find out how much extending the maker's warranty would cost you per year after the initial warranty has expired, that might give some indication as to how much faith the maker has in their own product, take into account Kia warrant for 7 years, Toyota and Hyundai 5, so arguably they already expect their vehicles to be reliable for longer...all these makes require full service records to maintain warranty and qualify for makers extended cover, so vehicles bought from indy dealers who might have serviced the thing themselves or those vehicles with chequered servioce histories might scupper makers warranty anyway and almost certainly maker's goodwill after warranty expires will be off the table.

Honestly i wouldn't be too concerned about avoiding a previously misfuelled vehicle and rather concentrate instead on finding the right make and vehicle worth your money.

As our resident car dealer guru will often say, the best examples of nearly new used cars are usually found within the maker's dealer network, they get first choice, take from that what you will.

Edited by gordonbennet on 18/09/2020 at 10:31

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - Andrew-T

As Andrew answered, no one would be able to tell conclusively if misfuelling had happened 2 years down the line.

Rectifying misfuelling often requires specialist attention. The only scenario I can imagine proving that had happened might be a sales invoice - an unlikely survival, but possible I suppose.

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - gordonbennet

Rectifying misfuelling often requires specialist attention. The only scenario I can imagine proving that had happened might be a sales invoice - an unlikely survival, but possible I suppose.

Quite, but again how many people bother to inspect the service history or additional paperwork carefully even if its made available, too many can't sign up quickly enough before doing the most basic of inspections or research, someone who knows their onions might spot physical evidence, ie a vehicle they are inspecting has a new high pressure fuel pump plus ancilliaries, or all new high pressure pipes which could mean new injectors...same as seeing a brand new radiator (including transmission oil cooler) on a used automatic would give cause for concern.

Edited by gordonbennet on 18/09/2020 at 12:24

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - concrete

2 years down the road and will the warrnty people avoid the claim by saying the car was misfuled at some point?

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The warranty people would have to suspect any fault was caused by previous mis-fueling. How are they going to get that idea? Many years ago I accidentally put about 6 litres of petrol into my diesel car. The tank was empty so I took a chance and filled it to the brim with diesel and got in about 65 litres of diesel. The engine never missed a beat and went to do 115K miles in the next 3 years. No issues at all. I think you are worrying too much. If you consider every possibility of things going wrong you would never leave the house. Have a bit of faith and be careful when filling with fuel.

Cheers Concrete

2nd hand car and misfuel diesel - concrete

Just a second comment about the Jeep.

DON'T

Cheers Concrete