Originally Posted by amebb (Post 1231156)

Hi there



I drive a e53 X5 automatic Diesel.


Yesterday i was at the petrol station and accidentally put in £15.00 of petrol in my car. I realised when it was too late. I then added an extra £30.00 of diesel in to the tank before starting it etc.


When i started my car it worked fine, no error messages, no smoke, no weird sounds etc.


Today i drove the car at around 60mph and on the dash a message came up >FUEL INJECTION.SYSTEM<



Once again, no weird sounds, No poor idling etc.


What would my best option be for me to do here? Should I drain the fuel or should i add more diesel to the tank so there s more diesel in the tank than petrol?


What are your thoughts on this?




Thank you

Originally Posted by nick325xit 5spd (Post 1231158)

You should have had the tank drained before running it. There's a risk that you have permanently damaged the injectors with the exposure to gas.

You *should* drain the tank now. I suspect that you'll probably end up trying filling the tank with diesel and seeing if that works. (It might.)

Originally Posted by Effduration (Post 1231161)

Drain the tank...

I just did this on an E39...You need to open both covers under the rear seat - left and right side - and pump it out...Hand pumps don't work...I used an external 12volt fuel pump and a hose.

Originally Posted by Clavurion (Post 1231165)

Of course it's best if you drain the tank directly. If this is pre-facelift with fuel filter in engine bay, you could drain the tank with its own pumps by removing the fuel line coming to filter.

High pressure pump is the component which could suffer most because of petrol's lower lubricating properties. When filling with fresh diesel I would also use some lubricating diesel additive or low ash 2-stroke oil (TC-W3) about 2-3 dl on full tank. Regarding any possible damages already happened you could first remove the return line coming from high pressure pump, turn on ignition and see if there is any metal debris/shavings on fuel coming out.