Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


kingdragonfly

11190 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#243714 27-Dec-2018 20:12
Send private message

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/109619865/caltex-christmas-mix-up-causes-pain-at-the-pump

Caltex Christmas mixup causes pain at the pump

Holiday motorists filled up with the wrong fuel after a costly mixup at a South Island service station over the weekend.

A Caltex station in Milton, Otago, accidentally filled its diesel tank with 91 octane petrol [which will be very expensive to repair, and less bad filled its petrol tank with diesel] on Friday, but the mistake was not noticed until Monday.

Otago man Dan Love was one of many motorists hit by the pre-Christmas mix up. He filled up his $25,000 Triumph motorbike with what he thought was 91 fuel, but it was diesel.

"I got about 5 kilometres and realised the bike was losing power and there was lots of white smoke," he said.

He managed to get the bike to Dunedin, but it would not start in the morning. The back of the bike, which is only seven months old, was covered in soot and grease.

He is taking the bike to his dealership in Invercargill to see if the engine was damaged by the wrong fuel. He went back to the Caltex station this week to find out what happened.

"They apologised and admitted the mistake," he said.

"They said there were lots of other people affected and said I should refer it to my insurer, which I wasn't happy with.

"If the bike is damaged, I will have to go back to Caltex. I don't think it is fair for me to incur the costs of this."


What to do if you put petrol (gasoline) in a diesel car
Auto Expert John Cadogan

It's Australian, so of course, rough language.


Create new topic
blakamin
4431 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user


  #2151242 27-Dec-2018 20:22
Send private message

Don't. Read. The. Comments.

 

 

 

My dog, there's some morons on stuff.




Goosey
2829 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

  #2151246 27-Dec-2018 20:45
Send private message

Yeha had to also laugh at the quality of reporting. The writter made it sound like the mistake was caused by the actual service station. 

 

Anyone with half a brain would know the delivery contractor would have been the one to fill the tanks. 

 

It sounds like only a small amount was filled before the mistake was realised else there would have been more reports and things realised immediatley. 

 

 

 

 

 

Diesel into a petrol just causes a good old fashion smoke out. 

 

Can be flushed through with more petrol or simply clean your tank and lines and filter. 

 

 

 

Petrol into Diesel is another matter.... 

 

 

 

it's a small town servo...Milton is about 200m long :-) 

 

 


richms
28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2151247 27-Dec-2018 20:47
Send private message

Goosey:

 

Diesel into a petrol just causes a good old fashion smoke out. 

 

Can be flushed through with more petrol or simply clean your tank and lines and filter. 

 

 

In the old days it did, but since the 80s you will crud up sensors and all sorts of other damage that will not just clean off.

 

Gonna be expensive for caltex.





Richard rich.ms



Goosey
2829 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

  #2151249 27-Dec-2018 20:57
Send private message

richms:

 

Goosey:

 

Diesel into a petrol just causes a good old fashion smoke out. 

 

Can be flushed through with more petrol or simply clean your tank and lines and filter. 

 

 

In the old days it did, but since the 80s you will crud up sensors and all sorts of other damage that will not just clean off.

 

Gonna be expensive for caltex.

 

 

 

 

As late as early 2000's I was witnissing people put the wrong fuel in their car. The onsite workshop simply drained, cleaned the tank and packed them off on their merry ways. 

 

The best one I saw was someone filling diesel into the water inlet !  (it was a mobile dentist). 

 

 


ajobbins
5052 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

  #2151250 27-Dec-2018 20:58
Send private message

I think petrol in some of the new direct injection diesels is pretty catastrophic. My old boss put petrol in her husband's brand new diesel Range Rover Sport a couple of years back. Was basically a whole new engine.




Twitter: ajobbins


richms
28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #2151263 27-Dec-2018 22:46
Send private message

Goosey:

 

As late as early 2000's I was witnissing people put the wrong fuel in their car. The onsite workshop simply drained, cleaned the tank and packed them off on their merry ways. 

 

The best one I saw was someone filling diesel into the water inlet !  (it was a mobile dentist). 

 

 

If its not been driven then no worries, and also the damage wont really show for a while, they will get the check engine light a few days later and by then they are not really going to have any comeback on the "onsite garage" who really did all that they could when it wasnt their fault.

 

This is the servos fault, and if the car has a warranty and the manufacturer says that its 8000 of damage, then good job arguing with them.





Richard rich.ms

Sidestep
1013 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #2151269 28-Dec-2018 06:24
Send private message

ajobbins: I think petrol in some of the new direct injection diesels is pretty catastrophic. My old boss put petrol in her husband's brand new diesel Range Rover Sport a couple of years back. Was basically a whole new engine.

 

Yep, with a high compression direct injection turbo it's pretty much all over if they suck petrol.

I had a close call while helping a friend move some of his business equipment to Tauranga.

On the way back we pulled into a servo. Through the window I could see my friend filling the ute for me using two separate bowsers - one in the front filler, one at the rear, (and trusting the auto-off to work) while he washed the windscreen.

I got out there just as they clicked off – and realised he'd filled my diesel vehicle with gas. He'd seen me fill it up with a yellow nozzle previously, but yellow here was unleaded.

There was no way I was even going to run it to back away from the pumps.

A bunch of people helped us roll it back out onto the forecourt and (discounting the servo guys advice to drain it down the stormwater drain!) we purchased a 200l drum from some guys spending their Saturday in a fabrication shop, and spent the afternoon - a good 4 hours - pumping out both tanks.

The rear we managed by jumpering the transfer pump - but the only way to drain the main tank was very slowly via the disconnected injector pump feed line with a paperclip stuck in the pump relay, then purging the lines with straight diesel. 
Surrounded by idiots offering advice the whole time ("just drive it, it wont even hurt it mate").

The workshop guys helped us load the 3/4 filled drum and roll the truck back to the diesel pumps.

A pretty annoying deal, and expensive for my friend who purchased 250l of fuel in total..
The 150l of diesel/gas mix turned out to be good for washing parts and lighting fires...


 
 
 

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.
Azzura
603 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

  #2151276 28-Dec-2018 07:37
Send private message


Create new topic





News and reviews »

Air New Zealand Starts AI adoption with OpenAI
Posted 24-Jul-2025 16:00


eero Pro 7 Review
Posted 23-Jul-2025 12:07


BeeStation Plus Review
Posted 21-Jul-2025 14:21


eero Unveils New Wi-Fi 7 Products in New Zealand
Posted 21-Jul-2025 00:01


WiZ Introduces HDMI Sync Box and other Light Devices
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:32


RedShield Enhances DDoS and Bot Attack Protection
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:26


Seagate Ships 30TB Drives
Posted 17-Jul-2025 11:24


Oclean AirPump A10 Water Flosser Review
Posted 13-Jul-2025 11:05


Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: Raising the Bar for Smartphones
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Brings New Edge-To-Edge FlexWindow
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Epson Launches New AM-C550Z WorkForce Enterprise printer
Posted 9-Jul-2025 18:22


Samsung Releases Smart Monitor M9
Posted 9-Jul-2025 17:46


Nearly Half of Older Kiwis Still Write their Passwords on Paper
Posted 9-Jul-2025 08:42


D-Link 4G+ Cat6 Wi-Fi 6 DWR-933M Mobile Hotspot Review
Posted 1-Jul-2025 11:34


Oppo A5 Series Launches With New Levels of Durability
Posted 30-Jun-2025 10:15









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.