Peugeot 306 TD Mis-fuel with 50 litres Unleaded

[1080]

This afternoon, after spraining my wrist from trying to start a 5hp Briggs & Stratton which has sat in a leaky garage for most of this century, this sprang to mind:
1996 and my friend had rented a nearly new 306 Turbo Diesel and filled the tank to the brim with just over 50 litres of.... petrol.
Using his own breakdown recovery to rescue the car he dumped it off at my new house.
Zero tools, I used a butter knife to get the pipe off the pump. We borrowed a piece of hosepipe and found three empty pressure wash detergent containers.

And then hand-pumped the tank dry using the rubber priming bulb.
If you think this is impossible, you are almost correct, as it takes five hours of continuous pumping the tiny bulb to empty it.
My god was my wrist/hand/back sore!

When he first collected the hire car, it had an odometer reading of: 666 miles and the service station was close to Bolton on he A666!
I hoped that the petrol was flammable enough to run my ancient Honda CB350. Nope!

[ozfrog]

[quote306] Turbo Diesel and filled the tank to the brim with just over 50 litres of.... petrol[/quote]

I know that it's a long time ago, and you weren't the person who did it, so your memory might not be good for all of the details.

Do you know at what point he realised the mistake (of filling with petrol instead of diesel)? My question is because I filled my 406 Hdi's 70 litre tank from almost empty to very/over full with petrol. I turned on the ignition and could hear the fuel pump in the tank whirring away, but before I turned the key that last turn, I asked my wife to look at the receipt I had just given her and I asked if I had been charged for unleaded or for diesel. I don't know how petrol is 'graded' in the U.K. these days - I haven't been there since 2012. But my wife informed me that I had put in our most expensive, highest octane petrol, Premium 98. Some 68 litres of it!

At 22.30 hours in a country town in Australia, I called for a breakdown tow and asked to be towed to my mechanic. The driver had pity on us because he took us both home after the job. The 406 tank has a drain plug at the bottom which was a huge relief for my mechanic and my wallet. I walked to a local fuel station and got 5 litres of fresh diesel and poured it into the newly emptied and re-plugged tank. Then I discovered something that a lot of other, later and more expensive cars don't have. The engine in the 406 self-primes, and it does it really quickly. I wouldn't have had the starter motor engaged for even close to 10 seconds. There were a few splutters as the petrol went through the engine and that was it.

Nearly 13 years later, and that engine is still going strong. And that car is still my favourite to drive.

[PaulC5]

On the 306 it would have been quicker and easier to syphon the tank empty by having the syphon hose outlet at a lower level than the tank and the inlet pushed inside the tank to its bottom through the filling nozzle.

[ozfrog]

Is there much, if anything, at a lower level than the tank of a 306?

My only experience with the 306 is via the Cabriolet models, but if they are representative of the rest of the 306 range, you'd need to dig a hole in the ground to get lower!

[PaulC5]

If needed, I guess the car could be jacked up rather than digging a hole.