Who's gonna admit it?

REAL DUMB.
Last Thursday on the way home from a really stressful day pulled into a "Pump-N-Save". You know, the stations with the bright green pumps.

Was filling up the car and noticed that my price was 10 cents less than advertised on the sign ... "Hey! Good Deal!"
---then---
"OH, S___!"
Hung up the pump handle and called my dealership & told them I'm comin' in on a tow truck.

Figured my mind had the bright green pumps as diesel.
Real expensive tank of gas! $500 to drain, wipe, drain, wipe & flush.

Gotta pay attention.

Nope, would never admit it. Really great you caught your blunder before you turned the key.

Here in WA., the diesel pumps seem to be always green, but one of the things I do is ALWAYS look for the word Diesel on the pump before I start pumping.

Coal Roller said:

OOOOPS! Guess you have to remember to smell the "bouquet" of the diesel. I have gotten into the habit of putting a wadded up sheet of paper towel under the filler neck. Sort of a "burp cloth" for when you're trying to fill 'er right up to the tip top. Having fuel run down the side of the car makes for that nasty "stripe".

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Huh? What does fuel running down the side of your car have to do with the OP's miss-fueling blunder?

I have only had a fueling nozzle malfunction once, and a paper towel would have done nothing to prevent a mess. The worst part is that the attendand thought my fueling problem was funny.

It has been well established several times on this forum that pump / pump nozzle color has NOTHING to do with what's being pumped out of that particular unit. This is our first diesel, and luckily, I normally refuel at a station that uses a "combo" pump that has everything in one unit- nozzles for ULSD, RUG, 89 & 93. Therefore I always check and see which display comes on and lights up, and ignore the nozzle color. When we travel and I go to other stations, I'm now in the habit of doing the same.

i've got mostly gassers right now, so i'm worried about filling 1 of them with diesel....

Going on 14 years of diesel ownership and neither me nor my wife (!) have made that error. Knock on wood. Around here pump the diesel pump handles can be either black, green, or yellow. One of the stations that we use has a single hose, diesel-only pump between 2 gas pumps. The other services a lot of trucks, and has all of the diesel pumps on one side of the building, so It's a no-brainer.

It was a silly, stupid, "I was not really paying attention" mistake.

Six years into diesel ownership, and I STILL stress about filling the tank. Yes, it has become automatic, but I find myself checking/double checking, even as I'm pumping. the fuel.

My friend and his brother, when traveling across the country, managed to fill not one, but two Honda M/C with diesel. 14 gal total, never noticed the bouquet.

So I was indoctrinating my wife on the protocol of filling her new diesel. Of course, I said to ALWAYS look for the green pump handle. Most stations have the green pump handle cover for diesel; not so for BP where all the handles are green EXCEPT diesel, which are black.
Guess where we stopped?

The new JSW TDI has a flap to make it NEARLY impossible to add gas to the diesel tank.

Back when I had my '80 diesel Wabbit, VW recommended that during the winter months, to put a small amount of gas in the diesel tank to aid in starting and to help prevent diesel fuel gelling.

That was then. How times change.

frank

The green handle is "not" the thing to look for. The word "diesel" is the thing to look for. There is no standard for handle colors. Go back and tell your wife you were wrong and then tell her correctly. You have been warned.

My 84 Volvo 245 diesel (with vw lump) also recommended up to 25% gas in the winter months. I don't doubt that 25% gas would kill my '11 TDI in short order. I will still take my finicky common rail over the powerless 2.4 any day.

I fuel at truck stop that only sells diesel. Im so concerned with the quality of diesel im running that its always on my mind.

For those who say to always "look for the green" nozzles, I would say READ and look for word "DIESEL" on the pump. If you can see the colored nozzles, then you read what type of fuel that pump has just as easily.

I can see how one can make a mistake, especially in families with both gas and diesel vehicles. I'm the only one who's filled my car and won't ever depend on someone else who only has driven gassers to do it.

GreenLantern_TDI said:

I fuel at truck stop that only sells diesel. Im so concerned with the quality of diesel im running that its always on my mind.

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Is that on I-80 not too far from the world's largest truck stop? I stopped there on a road trip and they looked at me like I had 3 heads when I wanted $10 worth of diesel cuz I didn't want to squeeze a full tank with the big nozzle.

Yeah, I made sure I 'fessed up right then and there I was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG about the GREEN handle. She understands that there is no consistent color coding, and to READ THE PUMP TWICE, or MORE!
Together with the gas-preventative fuel flap on her car, maybe we can avoid a tow-'n-drain.

As for owning a gasses and a diesel - we use gas from the Sunoco station owned by the guy across the street, and diesel from the BP just on the town skirts.
Should be OK.

I haven't accidentally put gas in my TDI but have a friend who did. Wrecked his fuel system but dealer covered it under warranty. I did spray diesel all over the side of my car once. It was pouring down rain and I didn't realize right away that the handle was squeezed and locked before inserting it into the filler (last person who purchased diesel must have paid inside and left the handle squeezed in and locked when he put the nozzle back). I paid at the pump, removed the nozzle, hit the button for diesel and before I could insert the nozzle it blasted diesel all over the side of my car. I was pretty annoyed by that. Luckily the car was wet and it didn't stick bad.

Nah i actually hit a kum and go truck stop. Kum and go in iowa is all b5-b20 depending on the time of the year. Love bio.

JHMartin said:

It was a silly, stupid, "I was not really paying attention" mistake.

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Yup. It was. Good thing you noticed before firing it up. MUCH cheaper that way.

My bride and I bought a 2001 TDI new off the dealer's lot, and since then our three rides have all come to be diesels. In that time, we've never had a misfueling problem (knocking heartily on wood) but we have had a couple pump jockey's attempt it.

Two of our vehicles are common rail diesels which would likely need to have the entire fueling system from tank to HPFP, lines, and injectors replaced if we got a significant amount of gas in there, so we try very hard to pay attention when we get go-juice. You think a new TDI is expensive when you have to do that, price out a BMW X5 35d fueling system.

And diesel pump handles around here can be green, black, yellow, orange, so unless it says in great big giant letters "D*I*E*S*E*L" on it, we aren't touching it.

The only misfueling story I have is when I put diesel into my MOTORCYCLE before we had even thought about a diesel car. Now with the second diesel car (the 2000 Beetle and a 2015 Golf) - it's 2nd nature for us to LOOK for the word DIESEL when it's time to fill. Have never put diesel into the '88 Acura Integra either.

Edit - and I Hate combo pumps. Always some gasser who takes it even when there are 5-15 different GAS ONLY islands. More than once I've had to honk the horn at them to move their car so I could fill up when they were going inside.

tdiatlast said:

Six years into diesel ownership, and I STILL stress about filling the tank. Yes, it has become automatic, but I find myself checking/double checking, even as I'm pumping. the fuel.

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I do the same thing and I've had my diesel vehicle since 2007

We've owned (our first) TDI for a year and a half now, in conjunction with our older gas car. No problems fueling thus far. I will state that if I were still "stressing" about misfueling the thing, or worrying (per a lot of other threads) about the quality of the fuel I'm putting in our TDI, I'd just go right out and trade back to a gasser. Today.

When I was 17 I worked at a heavy equipment rental place that had a petro canada gas station across the road with 2 diesel/gas pump islands. One day while rushing to get a Yanmar Loader filled up and ready for a customer I pushed the diesel button on the pump but picked up gas pump handle. The clerk thought I mistakenly pushed the diesel and turned the gas on. Well... about 80 litres later I noticed my mistake as you did and fessed up right away. Drained the tank right there at the pump and refilled lol... gas station wasn't to happy about that. But im actually glad I had that experience as now even when im in a rush I double check the pump before fueling and have never had a misfuel since

filling up my 7.3 I've had people refuse to turn on the gas pump

yes, I want gasoline
it doesn't start without ether, or 4 gallons of gasoline in each tank

Been driving VW Diesels since January 1980 ............ not one time have I pumped gasoline or diesel fuel in the wrong vehicle!