Filled up with diesel

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Miserly

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Long story shorter, lil miserly filled with diesel on the road. car stopped and had it towed to nearby garage. nearby garage drained tank, put in gas and tried to start and got misfires, noticed spark plugs tips missing. installed new spark plugs and still misfires.
got towed to dealer and dealer reports compression loss in one of the cylinders, replace this and that, $18k estimate.
i'll get another opinion on the repair, but in the meantime, is it possible to run it in EV mode only? my commute is short. just drive it like an ev?
 
Miserly said:
Long story shorter, lil miserly filled with diesel on the road. car stopped and had it towed to nearby garage. nearby garage drained tank, put in gas and tried to start and got misfires, noticed spark plugs tips missing. installed new spark plugs and still misfires.
got towed to dealer and dealer reports compression loss in one of the cylinders, replace this and that, $18k estimate.
i'll get another opinion on the repair, but in the meantime, is it possible to run it in EV mode only? my commute is short. just drive it like an ev?
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If it were me I'd start the engine and keep it running until all of the diesel is burned out.
 
Miserly said:
Long story shorter, lil miserly filled with diesel on the road. car stopped and had it towed to nearby garage.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I an very skeptical of this report...
A simple web search confirms my suspicion that is is not really possible to put diesel into a gasoline vehicle.
Here is a quote from a web page that describes why:

"The nozzle of a diesel fuel pump is larger in diameter than the opening on a gasoline tank. You won’t be able to insert the nozzle of a diesel pump into the fuel neck of your gasoline car, no matter how much you try. "

The opposite is possible (putting gasoline into a diesel vehicle), but you won't get diesel into a Clarity !
 
It doesn't really fit, but I think you may be able to hold it at the entrance and pour it in. The only way I can see somebody actually doing this, inexperienced or not, as if they learned to drive in a state where there's no self-serve (e.g., jersey), have never actually pumped their own gas, and saw the green handle and thought that's with what you needed for a green car. Sounds pretty far fetched but possible I guess.

If the tips of the spark plugs are missing they may still be in the cylinders, I'm probably would have scored them
 
jdonalds said:
If it were me I'd start the engine and keep it running until all of the diesel is burned out.
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the engine misfires. coincidentally, she was driving back from redding.

MrFixit said:
Sorry, but I an very skeptical of this report...
A simple web search confirms my suspicion that is is not really possible to put diesel into a gasoline vehicle.
Here is a quote from a web page that describes why:

"The nozzle of a diesel fuel pump is larger in diameter than the opening on a gasoline tank. You won’t be able to insert the nozzle of a diesel pump into the fuel neck of your gasoline car, no matter how much you try. "

The opposite is possible (putting gasoline into a diesel vehicle), but you won't get diesel into a Clarity !
Click to expand...

i too thought it was impossible. but lil miserly confirmed, she was able to "pump it". i think she didn't put the nozzle in the fill tank, just able to get enough to pump into the area before the fill hole.

JustAnotherPoorDriver said:
It doesn't really fit, but I think you may be able to hold it at the entrance and pour it in. The only way I can see somebody actually doing this, inexperienced or not, as if they learned to drive in a state where there's no self-serve (e.g., jersey), have never actually pumped their own gas, and saw the green handle and thought that's with what you needed for a green car. Sounds pretty far fetched but possible I guess.

If the tips of the spark plugs are missing they may still be in the cylinders, I'm probably would have scored them
Click to expand...

agreed. not easy to do, but still possible. she was taught how to pump gas once, but in the 110 degree heat and only needing a gallon or 2, she managed.

so i'm having it towed to my regular repair shop where they'll diagnose it again and see what can be done. we discussed as a last resort, replacing the engine with a salvage but that would still be way less than $18K.
 
Miserly said:
the engine misfires. coincidentally, she was driving back from redding.



i too thought it was impossible. but lil miserly confirmed, she was able to "pump it". i think she didn't put the nozzle in the fill tank, just able to get enough to pump into the area before the fill hole.



agreed. not easy to do, but still possible. she was taught how to pump gas once, but in the 110 degree heat and only needing a gallon or 2, she managed.

so i'm having it towed to my regular repair shop where they'll diagnose it again and see what can be done. we discussed as a last resort, replacing the engine with a salvage but that would still be way less than $18K.
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I don't know whether to applaud or SMH at the "problem solving" :) Lil JCA did kind of the opposite -- not Clarity related, but she came home one evening and announced that she stopped to get gas in the Civic, but the station was all out. Hmmm... The next day she came home again and had stopped at a different station that was also "all out". Now I was starting to get concerned that maybe there were shortages (it had been a few months since I'd gotten gas in the Clarity) or a problem with her card, or whatever. It was late and she had something else urgent to do, so I took the car in a different direction and was able to find a station to fill up.

A couple weeks later I hopped in the car with her and said "um, let's get gas at one of the stations that was out and you can show me what you did" -- apparently she forgot or didn't ever realize how to hook the nozzle all the way in for the gas to start (this may be part of the vapor recovery system here). Seriously, you jump right to "all the stations I stop at are all out of gas"? And I had made her get gas several times while teaching her to drive, but apparently that wasn't enough!

They do grow and learn from this stuff though -- a year and a half later, she's doing well away at college, and over the summer a lifeguard and in charge of practices and more on a swim team, etc. Both of those require a lot more problem-solving than getting gas, so there's hope!

Good luck bringing the Clarity back in service. It's possible to run EV-only most of the time (keep it in Econ mode and don't press past the detent), but it's not guaranteed as the car will do a "system check" occasionally.
 
Miserly said:
Long story shorter, lil miserly filled with diesel on the road. car stopped and had it towed to nearby garage. nearby garage drained tank, put in gas and tried to start and got misfires, noticed spark plugs tips missing. installed new spark plugs and still misfires.
got towed to dealer and dealer reports compression loss in one of the cylinders, replace this and that, $18k estimate.
i'll get another opinion on the repair, but in the meantime, is it possible to run it in EV mode only? my commute is short. just drive it like an ev?
Click to expand...
Just going back to the original question, you could drive the car like a BEV. The problem is that you would have to drive it gingerly and always in Eco mode. That's because if you hit the accelerator hard, the engine will try to start regardless of mode and I'm not sure what would happen then. In my case, I have a Subaru sitting (mostly) unused in the garage so for my needs, a 48 mile range BEV is all I need 95% of the time. Thus, if the OP has another vehicle, it might be worth saving the $18K and just driving Clarity as an EV until the traction battery dies.
 
18K is almost the price of another clarity. So I don't know if putting in an engine would be a good idea. Unless the used ebay ones are cheap
 
megreyhair said:
18K is almost the price of another clarity. So I don't know if putting in an engine would be a good idea. Unless the used ebay ones are cheap
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$18k is just under what i paid after incentives, new.
ebay engines are under $1500. my mechanic is going to give it a go so we'll see. even with an ebay engine and labor, it'll be way less with my mechanic.
 
Miserly said:
$18k is just under what i paid after incentives, new.
ebay engines are under $1500. my mechanic is going to give it a go so we'll see. even with an ebay engine and labor, it'll be way less with my mechanic.
Click to expand...
I guess a few Ks are not too bad.
The car does have a lot more electrical stuff then a regular car. Hope he is comfortable with the extra election connections etc. I found most mechanics are very bad with electrical stuff
 
so my mechanic recommends replacing the engine. found a 2020 engine with low miles for $2K delivered. my mechanic recommended replacing plugs and coils etc., so another $5K with labor for a total of $7K. ouch. he was worried that the new engine may need to be programmed and that i'd have to take to dealer for that. so fingers still crossed.
 
Miserly said:
so my mechanic recommends replacing the engine. found a 2020 engine with low miles for $2K delivered. my mechanic recommended replacing plugs and coils etc., so another $5K with labor for a total of $7K. ouch. he was worried that the new engine may need to be programmed and that i'd have to take to dealer for that. so fingers still crossed.
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My 2018 has about 42K miles but only about 5K in hybrid miles. Every time I change the oil, what comes out looks like new. If that engine was in a Clarity that was used similarly, it's barely broken in.
 
Yup. so $7K when it wall done with "new" engine and installation. an expensive lesson for all of us. it sounded fine when run in HV mode, so i hope no troubles for many years to come.
 
Miserly said:
Yup. so $7K when it wall done with "new" engine and installation. an expensive lesson for all of us. it sounded fine when run in HV mode, so i hope no troubles for many years to come.
Click to expand...

So was there any "programming" / dealer actions required, or just drop it in plug and play?
 
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