Anyone tried putting the larger diesel nozzle in petrol car? It won't fit.
If they get that fact wrong then I'd question the accuracy of the story. Some element of truth no doubt. I have often had to write to the BBC to ask for corrections ;-)
Edited by rtj70 on 22/12/2008 at 17:44
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Anyone tried putting the larger diesel nozzle in petrol car? It won't fit.
I bet WPC's still manage to do it.
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Anyone tried putting the larger diesel nozzle in petrol car? It won't fit.
That was my understanding as well, although I've never actually tried it. However, a forum search revealed that some Backroomers have done it.
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Anyone tried putting the larger diesel nozzle in petrol car? It won't fit.
Apart from that, they're horribly oily (petrol evaporates, diesel doesn't) so that should warn you. Eugh!
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I find it slightly worrying thats those charged with enforcing a myriad of motoring laws are unable to correctly identify the type of engine and its fuel system when at the refueling pumps.
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Hardly unable correctly to identify - if the report is accurate they manage it 99.9% of the time;-)
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Judging by the number of posts relating to the same mistake and 'near misses' on this forum then mis fueling is not just the preserve of the intellectually challenged.
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One pump handle is green, the other is black. The nozzles are of a different size and when you select a pump from it's holster, the price relating to the product comes up in front of you and there's a great deal of difference between the price of derv and the price of petrol. The police stations which I have visited and which have their own pumps, have the type of fuel written in big letters on the pump. The vehicle has it's own log book which must be filled in and that normally has the vehicles details on it.
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Pride goeth before a fall. I'd take extra care refuelling if I were you Mr X - or have you never made a forehead-slapping mistake?
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I forgot to mention smell......
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Colour of pumps are not consistent. Police forces probably have their own pumps... I have never seen a police car or ambulance at petrol station. But do see fire engines at the Tesco. maybe one of our police members can respond.
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Some nicks have their own fuel supplies but I think the more rural outposts use petrol stations. I have certainly seen marked cars refueling at them.
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And in response to Mr X saying the police pumps have the name of fuel printed... so do all others ;-)
But the ones at Police depots might not have diesel with a proper diesel nozzle - it should not fit in a petrol tank.
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Mr X you ability to never make a mistake is something I must aspire to :-)
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Keep aspiring. It's 'your' not you .
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We fill up at our local petrol station. Silly thing to do, but considering the thousands of times Police cars are refuelled daily, it's inevitable it'll happen every now and again.
(Always a good way to get a free cake from the guilty party)
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Only 1 free cake! The shift could dine out on that one.
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We run on Petrol, LPG and Diesel.
LPG - well I think that would be very difficult to mess up.
Petrol and Diesel come out of exactly the same style pumps with the same coloured hoses/nozzles.
We use a swipe key, key in the mileage. select pump number - 1, 2 or 3 depending which fuel you want and if it is available at that location.
Many stations do not have fueling facilities and fill up at commercial premesis on fuel cards.
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I don't think those figures are that supprising really. That is approx once in every 1000 fills. I've never put the wrong fuel in a car, but I've probably filled up less than 500 times over the years. It's probably a lot more difficult if you regularly drive cars with different types of fuel.
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One way of looking at it, the story shows the police are a true representation of the public because the AA says there are 150,000 incidents of people using the wrong fuel each year.
One solution is to buy a new Ford with a fancy new fuel cap.
?Easy Fuel also has a patented mis-fueling inhibitor to reduce improper fuelling and siphoning.
The inhibitor consists of a fuel nozzle detector that guides the nozzle to the opening. If a nozzle or foreign tube of a different size ? a diesel nozzle or plastic hose, for example ? is placed in the filler neck of a gasoline-powered vehicle, the latches will not release. For a diesel-powered vehicle, the inhibitor will keep out the smaller gasoline nozzles.?
Link: tinyurl.com/9kwevm
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I'm yet to be convinced that mis-fueling a diesel is the problem a lot of people and garages make out. I can understand the theory behind it (pump lubrication) but I've mentioned our Renault dci that was mis-fuelled three times in less than 30000 miles and we never had any problem with the pump or injectors. The turbo blew but that was probably my driving. I quite miss that car, it put up with a lot of abuse.
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Still don't get this mis-fueling malarky. I was castigated on here some months back for suggesting that a driver would have to be pretty dim to do it but I still think it seems a fairly daft thing to do.
For years my wife and I have switched cars as required. As a rule I have had diesel ones and she normally has petrols. We buy a lot of fuel. Our joint annual mileage would easily exceed 50k. Recently we have been sharing the use of three cars, two petrols and a diesel. Never have either of us so much as considered picking up the wrong nozzle. Far less stand there filling up with the wrong fuel.
We are not superhuman or anything, just fairly averagely provided in the synapse dept. but it really doesn't strike me as that difficult to remember which type of fuel to squirt into which type of car.
Like I say, not claiming perfection but how dozy do you have to be? Someone suggested that it was due to distraction, although at today's prices I find it very hard to think about anything else but the subject in hand when re-fueling !
Seems to be a lot of it about mind......
;-)
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It's claimed that fitting a Caparo RightFuel prevents petrol being put in a diesel tank. tinyurl.com/93cx44
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I'd say the error rate & average cost of repairs (about one mis-fuel in 1140 fill-ups & ~£150 reapir cost per mis-fuelling) looks remarkably reasonable in the circumstances you might imagine police operations operate: emergencies, frequent change of vehicle & driver etc.
The average cost of repair does point to the quick appreciation of error in those circumstances, as ~£150 would surely barely cover the cost of emptying/flushing/re-fuelling. A mistake yes, but not often it seems, compounded by driving the vehicle afterwards & ruining the engine/turbo/injectors etc. Not a bad performance I'd say.
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Two questions:
1. Why don't everyone (diesel car owners) fit a misfuel prevention device as they cost between £30-£80 (cheap compared with consequences of mis-fueling)?
2. Everywhere I read that it is not possible to put diesel in petrol car as diesel nozzle is larger, but how can some people still manage to do this?
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it can happen to anyone ,the bit I found interesting was that it happened about 50 times and only cost a total of £8870 or an average of £177
what would the average cost to the public be ?
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Like many others, I too thought I was perfect and would never misfuel, until a couple of months back, when I nearly put petrol in my wife's car...........and that was less than a minute after me saying to her that I must remember that it was diesel as I had been running around in a petrol car for a few months.
I was lucky, I had the pump in the tank, but hadn't started to dispense the fuel.
On a lighter note, a couple of week's back, I thought I had done it again when I looked at the price per litre and assumed that I had chosen petrol........I hadn't realised the price of diesel had dropped below one pound at that point :-)
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I managed to put a fiver of petrol into a diesel the other year before I realised my mistake. Felt rather foolish and very lucky that I'd stopped in time.
Mr X - be very careful indeed, and don't fill up at BP.
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Mr X
re pipe colours.
Today at sainsbury the city diesel pipe was yellow. At some BP stations the diesel is light blue. I know of one total station where the unleaded is black.
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I know of one total station where the unleaded is black.
The ESSO station at the A30/A315 [Clockhouse Lane Normand Roundabout], in Bedfont near Heathrow, also has all black hoses.
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Trouble is, having different colour nozzles and the price come up on the pump is no help if you've already made a decision as to the fuel you're putting in.
We had company fuel cards for filling at petrol stations (no resident pumps), and our force policy was to leave every vehicle full when returning it at the end of a shift so the next crew could go straight to a shout without worrying about fuel. As a result, and with the varying amount of vehicles, you could be fuelling many times within the week, both petrol and diesel.
In all that time I only recall one old diesel peugeot being filled with petrol which promptly killed it, although that was a blessing in disguise. A car so embarassing, that when attending the same G1 call, we had to pull in and let the T5 overtake, as we struggled to make more than 80...
More recently log books were coloured black/green and the new fords like the focus etc seem to have big chunky green/black fuel caps - but statistically I bet misfuelling will still occur!
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New Focus or Mondeo have the Ford fuel filler that cannot be used with the wrong nozzle.
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"A car so embarassing, that when attending the same G1 call, we had to pull in and let the T5 overtake, as we struggled to make more than 80..."
Ha ha that old one - Top Tip , always arrive second with your tyres screeching. That way the one who arrives first gets all the paperwork :-)))
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Put the diesel pump back in its rightful place next to the fence and the pile of scrap tyres etc, I say. But, short of that, I agree that not standardising on hose colours is bonkers.
Is it really impossible to get a diesel nozzle into a petrol hole? - not a thing I've experimented with.
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"Is it really impossible to get a diesel nozzle into a petrol hole?"
In the UK... yes. Other countries.... no.
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The colouring system could be worse. Fire extinguishers for example. At one time they were colour coded, now they're all painted red regardless of whether they're water, powder, Co2, etc.
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The colouring system could be worse. Fire extinguishers for example. At one time they were colour coded now they're all painted red regardless of whether they're water powder Co2 etc.
exit signs in cinema's and other public buildings used to be in red..or was it green? and why the change over?.. i heard that exit signs were changed from red to green because most non native residents didnt consider red as a danger colour, myth or pc brigade in force?
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and despite the advice to ' not run but proceed in an orderly fashion in the event of a fire " the new signs featured a drawing of some one running !
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and despite the advice to ' not run but proceed in an orderly fashion in the event of a fire " the new signs featured a drawing of some one running !
what advise? an exit sign doesnt mean diddly squat if you cant speak english, i was referring to the colour of the sign... and as for the "running man" signs , they are pretty recent
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