Wrong fuel - more than once?

[obi_waynne]

Ok then so who's put the wrong fuel in their car more than once?

I've always said it's something you only do once but I have a friend who has owned a diesel now for 6 years and in the last 2 months has put in the wrong fuel.

It's cost him around £500 in lost fuel, drain and repairs to his car now! Is there an easy way to stop STUPID from happening?

 

[HDi fun]

Not yet!! I've owned petrol and diesel cars simultaneously so I am good candidate for this.

 

[T9 man]

Exactly how difficult would it be to come up with a fuel tank entry design for diesel (A rubber star shaped attachment for instance) that you can buy from the petrol station, motor accessory centres etc that would just sit inside the fuel filler and the petrol station could just put this attachment on the pump nozzle and thus prevent the insertion of the nozzle into the wrong tank? Ruddy hell, I can see a serious money making opportunity here

 

[obi_waynne]

I'm pretty sure some car makers already have a design which prevents the wrong nozzle from fitting, they are different sizes. Was it Ford that did this? Anyhow I can't see why this issue isn't dealt with across the board and made impossible to happen.

 

[HDi fun]

Ford 'easyfuel' ??@ - not sure of exact spelling - does exactly this.

 

[obi_waynne]

That's what I was thinking of. I bet they have a patent on it and won't share it with others!

 

[T9 man]

I bet they have a patent on it and won't share it with others!

A bit like the heated front windscreen

 

[HDi fun]

Heated front screens were a Ford only thing in the late 1980s. I remember the vertical grid hairline wires which was very disturbing once you notice them.

They [heated front screens] are much more widely used now. It's kind of hard to patent something that is just an idea or concept. Wires in glass and a 12v to 48v inverter were not Ford inventions.

It would be like Microsoft trying to patent the word windows or Apple trying to patent the word apple.

Ford should do as Tesla has done. Musk has patented much of the Tesla technology but it's free for other makers to use. This is very very clever of him. It prevents GM (for example) patenting HIS technology and then prohibiting HIM from using.

 

[Dale69]

here in oz, they went to a smaller inlet size on cars when they got rid of leaded petrol for this reason, ulp into diesel vehicles does still happen from what i hear, most petrol stations have a big clip on the diesel bowsers that you have to press to get the nozzle out plus they were set apart from the petrol nozzles, but with turbo diesels becoming more popular and newer pumps having multiple nozzles they have moved away from the idea so can see it happening more often

 

[HDi fun]

How does turbocharging a diesel engine change mis-fuelling? When ULP appeared here en mass, around 1988, the narrow nozzle was implemented. Diesel pumps still have large bore nozzles. Loading ULP into a common rail or PD diesel engine is an expensive mistake.