Thread: Misfuelling explained - What to do if you put the wrong fuel in your car - Practical

A few years back I was driving a LPG/petrol Troopy and pulled into the BP servo in Alice Springs to top up the petrol. Before I started filling a bloke came up to me and asked "do you want some free petrol ?". Now, being a wary sort of person I immediately think 'what's the scam here'. Turns out it was no scam at all.

This bloke, an American tourist and his mate, an Irishman had filled five new plastic jerry cans (about $150 worth) with 100 litres of petrol (also about $150 worth) instead of diesel for their hired diesel troopy and now had a problem. What to do with it, hence the offer of free petrol so they could refill the jerry cans with diesel and be on their way.

So here we were, the American, the Irishman and the Aussie and it was no joke .

These blokes weren't dills they were just '**** out of luck'. They were misled on three fronts. The unleaded petrol bowser had a yellow plastic shroud on the nozzle, the fuel was a pale yellow colour and it was Opal unleaded fuel.

Here's why the were confused, 1/. The colour denoting diesel that these guys were used to was yellow, not the black we are used to in Australia. 2/. The diesel fuel colour these two were used to was pale yellow (at the time BP diesel was green and Opal unleaded was pale yellow) and 3/. Being Opal unleaded petrol it had no or very little aroma (so it was no good for petrol sniffing) so couldn't be identified by smell. A 'perfect storm' for our international visitors. As I said '**** out of luck'.

In the end I bought the five plastic jerry cans of fuel for the cost of the jerry cans. The yank and the Irishman bought five new jerrys and wrote off the cost of the petrol and I got five plastic jerrys (which I really didn't need) and 100 litres of free fuel (which I had to fit in somehow).

Later, on the same trip we came across another couple who'd topped up their diesel Pajero with Opal unleaded fuel who had also been 'confused', initially with no coloured shroud on the nozzle, the fuel colour and lack of smell.

The further you get from 'civilisation' the more likely it is to find different coloured or no shrouds on the nozzle, with the demise of diesel refining in Australia the fuel can also be of different colours and whilst Opal is good for saving the lives of potential petrol sniffers for the non outback fuel savvy it can be a real trap.

I fuel at the fast fill diesel bowsers whenever possible to help avoid this problem.

Deano