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The Missus has put unleaded in the NW Pajero instead of diesel and then driven about 70 km's, telling me the car is running funny when she arrived home!
The Paj was fuelled up on Saturday night and she only put 22litres of unleaded in it, as we were meant to be going away in the Patrol for the week and she only put in enough fuel to do what she needed. This meant it was probably about a 70/30 Unleaded/Diesel Mix, so hopefully still had some lubricating properties.
After she arrived home, I looked at the Paj and at first thought it must have been sucking in air, as I'd done a service the week before and changed the fuel filter. But it soon became evident that unleaded was in the mix as we could smell it, so we checked her fuel receipt and yep, wrong fuel!
I was stressing all night and thinking the worst, failed injector pump, injectors etc, and I couldn't find anything in my insurance (RAC WA) PDS relating to misfueling. The RAC Insurance call centre had closed for the night, so I waited until they re-opened at 8:30am today and gave them a call. A big sigh of relief, they told me it was covered as it is considered accidental damage. The next step is to get it towed to a workshop and get a repair quote back to RAC, I've delayed my trip by a couple of days to hopefully get the Pajero into a workshop and get things moving along.
So we've dodged a bullet there and a potential $10k claim will now only be a $500 insurance excess. (Along with the resulting increase in next years premiums no doubt) I discussed this with forum member sharkcaver and we agreed that there is a good possibility that there may be no damage to the injector pump etc due to the ratio of diesel in the mix and it may all be good. So I've tossed up just draining the tank and changing the fuel filter etc and seeing how it goes, but I think I'm far better off heading down the insurance path, in case there is an unforeseen problem with the pump or injectors etc.
I'll let you all know what the damage is once they give me a quote.
The Paj was fuelled up on Saturday night and she only put 22litres of unleaded in it, as we were meant to be going away in the Patrol for the week and she only put in enough fuel to do what she needed. This meant it was probably about a 70/30 Unleaded/Diesel Mix, so hopefully still had some lubricating properties.
After she arrived home, I looked at the Paj and at first thought it must have been sucking in air, as I'd done a service the week before and changed the fuel filter. But it soon became evident that unleaded was in the mix as we could smell it, so we checked her fuel receipt and yep, wrong fuel!
I was stressing all night and thinking the worst, failed injector pump, injectors etc, and I couldn't find anything in my insurance (RAC WA) PDS relating to misfueling. The RAC Insurance call centre had closed for the night, so I waited until they re-opened at 8:30am today and gave them a call. A big sigh of relief, they told me it was covered as it is considered accidental damage. The next step is to get it towed to a workshop and get a repair quote back to RAC, I've delayed my trip by a couple of days to hopefully get the Pajero into a workshop and get things moving along.
So we've dodged a bullet there and a potential $10k claim will now only be a $500 insurance excess. (Along with the resulting increase in next years premiums no doubt) I discussed this with forum member sharkcaver and we agreed that there is a good possibility that there may be no damage to the injector pump etc due to the ratio of diesel in the mix and it may all be good. So I've tossed up just draining the tank and changing the fuel filter etc and seeing how it goes, but I think I'm far better off heading down the insurance path, in case there is an unforeseen problem with the pump or injectors etc.
I'll let you all know what the damage is once they give me a quote.
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