Happy Father’s Day! Diesel 200 series edition

[rhd0002]

Question for the community. My wife thought a great Father’s Day would be filling up the my 200 series. Only problem is she grabbed the green nozzle. And drove 200 feet with the mostly full tank of diesel fuel before realizing….

Anyone have experience with how bad this can be on the engine? Any tips on how to handle besides draining the tank?

I’ve got a 2013 with 230k miles. Hoping the engine isn’t a goner. I got it towed to nearest Lexus dealership to drain tank and inspect tomorrow. Happy Father’s Day.

 

[Kinnada]

so many questions...
my very first post on mud was a picture of me filling up my cruiser after driving her home for the first time. a member here thought i was an idiot when they saw it had a green handled dispenser, thinking i'd put diesel in an am obviously unleaded gasoline vehicle tank. what they didn't know was that at my local BP gas station, ALL the pump handles are green, and the diesel was yellow.
besides- i've always understood that vehicle filler necks for gasoline are too narrow for a proper diesel nozzle which is a larger diameter and cannot fit. how do you KNOW that diesel was filled, just by the color of the filler handle ? did the gas station have the wrong dispenser handle on the pump?
'hey google, can you accidentally fill an unleaded gasoline vehicle with diesel'...

 

[Kinnada]

p.s. happy father's day

 

[Kinnada]

i'm not necessarily jumping to conclusions yet, you have certain things to verify first but if the gas station had the wrong dispenser nozzle on the diesel pump, here are a few thoughts to consider:
(also not sure if you're stateside and if your country has different rules etc)

 

[kcjaz]

Ouch. I’d start with telling your wife you love her…

Did she realize it, or did the car die? It would have fired up ok with residual gas in the lines then started to knock like hell and die. At this point, all you can do is drain/flush the diesel and inspect for damage. Weird she was able to get the diesel nozzle in the filler neck.

 

[rhd0002]

Great questions. Very strange nozzle fit, I agree. I did manage to tell her I love her.

The gas station had diesel on the left with green nozzle. Regular 87/89/91 on the right. The car was running fine, but low on fuel. She fills with the diesel nozzle per her recollection, Car starts, drives 100 feet and won’t accelerate and starts to knock and make bad noises. She pulls over another 50-100 feet on shoulder. Gurgling sound made, then I was called and car was cut off. I did not try to start myself. I did not inspect the nozzle size ( even though that was my impression it shouldn’t fit, and now I wish I had). I also confirmed car wasn’t knocked into neutral. After a lovely 3 hour wait at a sketchy Atlanta exit, AAA finally showed up and they got it to Lexus dealer. I guess there could have been another malfunction, but that seems coincidental. On top of that if I fired up that’s just that much more diesel in the system, so at that point it seemed prudent to get to someone who could flush.

 

[Kinnada]

i'm sorry to hear. i suggest putting a file together of your gas receipt or credit card statement, dash cam (anything else you have) showing the location, date and time of your incident, photos of the pump and nozzle etc to preserve flexibility should you decide to go back and see if the gas station had any role in this that they may be responsible for.
good luck bro

 

[rhd0002]

Thanks brotha. Dealer apparently sees this a ton. Happens at BPs mostly, all nozzles are green (that was us). They wanted to drop the fuel tank to get to a pump line. $600 and change seems like a Smyrna Atlanta price. Still the big question on is anything else messed up. We shall see.

 

[Bugholes]

Your engine should be fine. Way better to put diesel in a gas engine than gas in a diesel engine. They will need to drain tank and flush the fuel injection system with new gas, get it running, then change the spark plugs. I’m sure they’ll have a few other recommendations as well

 

[bloc]

Your engine should be fine. Way better to put diesel in a gas engine than gas in a diesel engine.

This.

 

[rhd0002]

It is sounding like it will be ok. They drained diesel, changed spark plugs, and flushed 5 gallons through. 2 cylinders were misfiring with check engine light on. They flushed another 6 gallons through and apparently it has cleared up the misfire. No check engine light. Only other recommendation at this point is battery.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

Fuel filter and fuel pump/sock

 

[bloc]

No fuel filter on US market 200s. Only the sock. Mine was almost perfect at 195k miles.

 

[32cls6speedmt]

It is sounding like it will be ok. They drained diesel, changed spark plugs, and flushed 5 gallons through. 2 cylinders were misfiring with check engine light on. They flushed another 6 gallons through and apparently it has cleared up the misfire. No check engine light. Only other recommendation at this point is battery

$600 is pretty good for nalley lexus of Smyrna. Especially if they changed out all eight spark plugs.

Also note that Costco members can get 15 percent off due. Just fill out the Costco link and Costco will email you a coupon code instantly.

 

[rhd0002]

Hallelujah. They drove 40 miles on it this morning. No check engine light. Went ahead with replacing the battery as well (it was needed). I asked about sock and pump, and it sounds like they were trying to save me money by not doing sock and pump, which I appreciate. I may decide to do it at some point, but would like to get it back and run it for a while.

Thanks for the costco note.
Yes, it was all spark plugs. I got a quote from toyotech as well and they were $638 for plugs and 600-750$ for flush, so very comparable.
Thanks for the info gents.