First, it wasn't me, nor my MINI, thankfully. BUT... my wife today accidentally, in a rush and on minimal sleep put 3 gallons of diesel gas in her '05 Pontiac Vibe!

After locating her, thankfully only 5 minutes from my office, it took me only a short time to realize what she had done. I had it towed to my pop's house about 10 miles away where I plan to work on it tomorrow, and probably over the weekend...

I need to pack tools tonight, and other equipment that I might need to resolve this situation. Any helpful information that one can share would be most appreciated. Thank you so much!

 

I would strongly suggest you to tow it to the nearest GM dealership, may be costly, however they will know what to do better than you and I.

 

i would pump out the tank and fill it up with regular gas and run itfor a bit, i dont think there could be too much harm done.

 

Did she try to start it after she put the diesel in? If not you should be able to just drain the tank. If she ran it, the diesel may cause black smoke and an engine knock for a short time. My uncle did this in his truck once and it smoked for a while till he ran through it. He was a cheap redneck so didn't want to drain the gas he had just put in it. It was his fault he was stairing at some girl at anouther pump and didnt watch what he was doing.

 

Thats odd I thought the nozzles for gas and diesel were different so it would be possible to do that.

 

Guys, thanks for the fast replies! I'm of course scouring the web like a madman, and there appears to be some hope. I don't know her car like I do the MINI, so I need to go the Vibe forums now as I didn't see a drain plug on the Vibe's fuel tank tonight, but it was getting dark though...

The tank was dang near empty when she gassed-up, and since the price was high, she only put in 3 gallons so she could get more gas later at a station with more favorable prices.

Got home late, and my dad drove us... She feels REALLY bad, and I'm being a good husband telling her that I can fix it, and all will be ok...

I'm thinking that I'll need to pull the plugs and clean them up as they might be fouled. Maybe even the fuel rail... to drain it. No Bentley for the Vibe, so I'll learn as I go... Thanks again.

 

just get yourself one of those hand operated pumps and drop it down the filler of the gas take and pump it all out. if it had diesel in it, the gas is garbage anyways now.

i cant see this causing damage to the injectors or anything, just make sure you try and get all of the fuel out of the tank.

 

I have an aquarium syphon pump or two lying around that I'll bring. Diesel is heavier and will go to the bottom, and be more difficult to get out. I still think that there must be a drain plug of some type...

Well, I just joined the GenVibe forum and posted there. Let's see how that goes...

 

OOH thank goodness it wasn't the MINI! Was the Vibe driven with the diesel fuel for any distance? It might shorten the life of the catalytic converter...

 

From the gas station to the supermkt was about 3 blocks, no problem. After the supermkt, she got about 1/4 of a mile, then it got bad. She coasted the Vibe into a safe area and called me. So, less than .5 miles with about 3 gallons still there that needs to come out.

No word yet on the Vibe forum... Time for a shower, and I'll check later...

 

Rossii, well, if that's true, I guess it's still possible

 

Unhook your fuel line up by the injectors, and use the fuel pump to empty your lines/residual amount from tank. This after having siphoned off all you can manually. Refill with gasoline, the little diesel left should not cause a problem.

 

I say fix the car and get a new wife! J/K!

MGCMan has it on the head. I am in Fuels in the military and deal with this all the time.
There really is no need to drop the tank. Though it would help. Pull the shrader valve out at the Fuel rail if there is one. Use a tire shrader valve stem remover. If not there should be another place on the rail to check fuel pressure. You need to open the fuel system at the rail somewhere as close to the injectors as possible. Once opened, get a rag and drip pans to control what your about to do. Turn the key to the on position and let the fuel pump cycle. It will continue to run because it never reaches the regulators pressure. If the ECM is smart enough it may shut it off on its own. Just turn the key off and back on and it should run again. Let it run until it goes dry at the fuel rail. Put some regular gas in it this time, turn the key again to purge the line with gas. Be careful as the system can have a good bit of pressure.Once you get gas at the rail, plug it back up. Turn the key back on to cycle the pump and build the pressure back into the fuel system. Once you hear the pump shut itself off, try and fire it up. It may take a bit before it fires, but it will fire. Maybe run like poop for a few minutes. It will eventually straighten out. There is no way any internall damage could have been done. To the injectors, the pump or the valves. It just cant happen off of deisel. Now if we were talking about gas in a deisel, thats a different story.
Worse thing that may have happened is the CEL light is on. Dont fear, its just from one of the gazillion sensors on the vehicles telling you something isnt right. After it has ran a bit, and it seems to be running normally, and if the light doesnt go out on its own, you can disonnect the batt for a few minutes to reset the EPROM chip in the ECM.
But you dont have to take my advice, Im just some dood on the Inet!

 

MGCMAN and K4KAS, a big thank you as well! Feeling like I have some hope that I'll be successful with this now...

FWIW, the Vibe guys feel that it is best to drain the tank from top (no drain plug). As with our MINI, that entails the removal of the rear seat to expose the sender and other goodies...

One guy there just provided me with another PDF of the fuel rail and injectors (removal procedure). That should help for my purposes...

K4KAS, whether you are currently serving or have completed your tour, I thank you as well for that . I'll report back later...

 

Well, the Vibe is alive!!! Took about 3.5 hours, and my dad's assitance along the way, but after about 5 minutes of the shakes, and horrendous smoke, she's runnin' pretty smooth now. A full tank of 87 sits in her belly, along with 3 bucks worth of injector cleaner...

Nothing went quite as planned as the PDFs I had were not exact... probably a different model year. And connectors often said "one time use" and I wasn't about to pop them open w/o a replacement ready...

Bascially, since the fuel pump is in the tank, we simply used it to drive-out the remaining diesel. The key needed to be in the start mode though (engine trying to start) which is not good. So, I went under and disco'd the starter . After that, I held the key in the start position, and the pump drove-out the fuel...

I used a Mity Vac of sorts to suck-out the contents in the line going to the engine. Didn't get a whole lot, but enough...

Thanks for the help guys! Looks like I can get some fun work done on my MINI this weekend .

 

WOO HOO!!! Congradulations

 

Good to hear that

 

Great news TonyB,

Glad to have been the source of some assistance.

mgc

 

Good deal TonyB, glad you got it fixed!

Rossii is right, at least here in the US the diesel filler nozzles are a larger diameter than the gasoline nozzles, making it impossible to insert the diesel nozzle into a gasoline-powered car's filler neck. I'm sure you could still manage to get the fuel in there, but you would have to hold the nozzle carefully without putting it alll the way into the filler neck.

 

Guys, we are going back to that gas station today. I need to see what she did, and how she did it. I still don't quite understand myself, and when she's in tears and feeling bad, it was no time for the inquisition . She did just say that it didn't fit very well... I guess she was also a bit confused that there was just one nozzle, and off to the side with several buttons to choose. I sort of recall something like this, but I need to see it myself, and explain to her...

My wife's native language is not English. She is from Taiwan (Mandarin speaking). Coupled with the lack of sleep during that time, and the tank at "E", well... I now know the Vibe a little bit better, and that's a good thing I suppose... I actually take the Vibe to work Tue-Thu as it gets better gas mileage than my MCS, and it doesn't need high grade. That helps during these days of high gas prices... and keep miles off of my MINI. I will have had my MINI 3 years on Halloween, and I'm just below 36k miles, so not too bad...

 

Way to be a sweet husband. Good for you for staying calm and not getting angry with her.


I am interested in how it happened (Yucca would be crushed if I did this). I remember picking up the Diesel pump onece, but I could tell it didn't fit right and quit.

 

Thanks PPE. Nothing is gained by making her feel worse. She was so happy that I didn't flip-out. Made our relationship stronger, I'm sure. And, she called me her "hero".

Time to get that oil temp gauge working on my MINI... Then off to a Halloween party. I'm going to dress-up as a MINI mechanic... with my NAM MINI mechanic's shirt. My wife said that I've worn that to work.... and that it's not "dressing-up"

 

No he wouldn't. You all are still on your HONEYMOON

Bewildered or curios but not "crushed"!

 

I don't know. He is out there waxing the PPE mobile right now. I am pretty sure that seeing her sputter and smoke would bring a tear to his eye.

 

Really interesting thread... My advice Tony, don't drag the wife back to the gas station. Now that the Vibe is OK, forget the whole thing!

BTW my VW has some annoying electrical issues (I know THATS hard to believe)... Wanna drive out to New Jersey and fix it for me because you are obviously the man?!?!?