Just now i went to petrol station to fill the tank up a bit of petrol overflow and came out, the petrol station attendant saw and came with his bucket of water thing to rinse of the petrol that overflow. But i saw when he was doing it a bit of water went to into the tank. This is bad right?? What should i do now? Car in use was a perodua bezza.

nope... still okay..... water is h20.... so it will help with the cleaning process

Water and oil does not mix. It’ll float on top of the tank. If a little, then you should be worried as it’ll vaporized eventually.

Did u close back the petrol cap before he rinse it?

How does the water vapourise in an enclosed fuel tank?
Actually water does mix with fuel, unless you don't drive the car. Then water will settle at the *bottom* of the tank, not float.

He suspected water got into his tank, so this means the cap was not closed?

I also not sure.
But if we screw the cap to close and pour water over the cap, it should be fine right? Because i notice the water will flow into a hole and out of the car.

so i just leave it?
But according to what i google it will cause quite a serious damage to few parts?

No it was open. I went to put back the petrol pump and when i turn around i saw the attendant was pouring water there and i did see some water enter the hole...

So what you suggest i do. I do use the car daily but only about 15-20 km daily. Yesterday after i pump i came back home which was less then 5km away. Water must have settle at the bottom by now?

do nothing, monitor the car for any signs of trouble... if a bit shouldn't matter.

Some water getting sprayed by the injectors into the combustion chamber will not cause any issue. If the car is hesitating, feel underpowered, jerking during acceleration then maybe a lot of water get in.

Drive until almost empty a few times to make sure the water gets out.

Other way round, petrol floats on water.

Most of the water probably pumped out of the tank and through your engine by now.

Dude.. Just bring to a mechanic nearby and drain the fuel tank lah why so susah. Easy job. After that go refuel.

The small amount of water as described probably gets emulsified in the petrol fuel .......and consumed/burnt in normal way.

Modern car fueling system has a cap at the mouth to prevent water from seeping in. The damage won't be that high. These are all failsafe to prevent dummies doing stupid shit like pouring water at the fuel mouth area.

Ppl keep telling me water won't mix with petrol/diesel.

I guess they hey haven't seen cloudy petrol/diesel.

This +1,

Use a syphoon to get fluid out of the tank. Do it soon. If you can't, get a mechanic nearby to do it and bring a fuel can so you can drive your car to the fuel station.

After 2 or 3 cycle of fuel the water will drain or clean by the fuel additive that comes with the fuel.

A bit of water can’t do much harm to the car.

Isn't water is denser than petrol? Water will sink to the bottom of the tank.

Can try this type of fuel additive for condensation.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z140XgsoPcI

water in the tank is fine, just keep filling the tank with petrol to reduce any harmful effects. if a bit of water got into the tank theres nothing to worry about as all that matters is that the octane and knock index of the new mixed fluids are combustible with a spark plug and within engine operating specs. Water is actually a byproduct of combustion so its like having a bit of exhaust back into the engine which is what some car systems do to get rid of toxic gases and retard engine power when needed.

You'd be surprised on what you can make your engine run on, and can be modified with little effort to combust hydrogen gas. Maintenance is the most important thing.

hydrogen and water are two different component. ever heard of hyrolock?

if its just a splash its no harm. if its quite a large volume, then consider flushing.

they are different, but you can have many different liquids and even petrol itself doesnt matter if ron 95, 97 or higher all have impurities. Its how much impurity the fuel injectors can tolerate and how much out of spec it is. The engine will happily burn anything that goes in but if its purely water, then you would not get any power from it and water vapour will come out your exhaust.

While fuel injectors are sensitive, water with its impurities is smaller than RON 95 which is a big chain of carbon and hydrogen, and possibly some other atoms in the large molecule as well. The space between one molecule to another is so big compared to space between atoms of a molecule, that using bigger molecules provides more power density and the same is true with rockets, hydrogen and oxygen are a basic rocket fuel, what is used normally is so dangerous that it is more potent than explosives. so tap water which has h20 and a bunch of impurities like metal and nitrogen based stuff is far smaller than a RON 95 petrol molecule that it would burn through the engine without issue as long as the engine is able to at least burn something that produces power (water wont but some fuel in each cylinder will), so a bit of water is harmless. That does not mean you should always put a bit of water in the tank as doing so will just reduce your engine power and efficiency and if not enough can be produced to keep the engine running (too much water), then thats basically flooded and would require the tank and engine to be pumped.

Not sure what you're trying to explain but water and hydrogens are two different phase. Your fuel pump sucks from bottom of the tank in which you can see your fuel pump pump and filter is placed rock bottom of the cage. Hydrogen is lighter and will eventually vent out from the tank. I agree small quantity of water is ok nevertheless Water is bad and you run the risk of hydrolock

What I'm saying is that the internal combustion engine will run on anything that combust. Water won't combust and as long as sufficient fuel gets into the cylinder it'd be fine. As I said, Ron 95 is larger than water, won't clog or damage injector and too much will just flood the engine. Clearing out the engine is easy, replacing injectors is a killing, so water is fine but not anything bigger than what they were designed to handle or chemically bad like something corrosive. Also as long as the fuel doesn't pre ignite. So your car is safe if its just water, not diesel in a petrol

This post has been edited by System Error Message: Dec 10 2018, 03:41 PM

correction not all internal combustion engine will run anything that combust. Jet fuel will only burn when its spray as mist with air, diesel will only combust if its pressurized highly. if you light a match into both fuel, they will extinguish the fire.

there is no guaranty on how much the fuel pump will suck out of the water. Brands like fuel chem do come out additives which will emulsify water.

do you know how much of fuel, injectors spray out for each cycle? also, fyi, its easy to change normal MPI injectors. You just need to make sure the new O-rings seals.

water is corrosive esp you're running at high heat. ever wonder why iron smith uses coal instead of gas? we use small regulated quantities of water to clean the internal carbon, but it takes experience to do so.

the nozzle for diesel on most petrol stations are bigger than petrol, how do you manage to put it in? by mistake pumping petrol in diesel cars I can comprehend as the hole is bigger than the smaller petrol nozzle.

it is never safe to have water in your fuel tank.

its basically just a pump, it'll compress anything that comes in and if it doesnt burn and provide energy right, the engine will stall. However engines can actually run on many things that will burn, and yes you can run your car on jet fuel but only if you modify your engine to do so but the main engine block with pistons will still be there.

So what im saying its not your engine you gotta worry about but your fuel injectors. Water is smaller so its fine, as long as theres enough fuel that goes into the compression to stop the engine from stalling you're fine, if not you'll have to do a flush/pump.

I still don't understand what you're trying to say. I believe you're derailing the topic. We are talking improper fluids in the fuel tank. If you have water you run the risk of getting hydrolock. Your cylinder when the piston is trying to compress water which is not compressible . This is more serious than replacing a fuel injector which takes minutes. You got to rip off the whole engine to replace all the damaged or bent engine parts. When hydrolock happens your engine locks up. no way you can turn the engine because conrods and piston are bent out. also, Don't think that any fuel are combustible you can just use it on a normal engine. wrong ignition timing with high compression with wrong type of fuel is going to cause predetonation and knocking. You will kill your engine prematurely. Or worse see things flying out of the engine bay puncturing the engine block. My recommendation is always to flush the tank whenever possible.

only if the there is no proper computer control to do all that, depends on the car. For many years already manufacturers have been designing their engines to run on far more things and fuel is not exactly pure. What im saying is that water in the tank is not as serious as it sounds, but trying to run the engine on only water could require even an oil flush aside from pumping all the water out of the tank and e ngine. To give an example on a less modern car, top gear once left a toyota exposed to sea for a while then got it back to life, but the engineer on site had to open the engine, pump all the water out, put it back and it got working, he did not have to replace a single part. In the OP's case, a bucket of water came his way to the fuel tank, but it was already full/overflowing so the amount of water to fuel would be so little that it would not matter but he could end up making maybe 1-2 hp less for a while till the water clears out, because when thet air and fuel is compressed, its not like as if the air going into the engine is 100% oxygen, its the same composition of air that we breathe and in malaysia with 80% humidity im sure a decent chunk of it is water. Its not the end of the world and for many cars engines are built better with computer controlled timings, ignition, sensors and much more.

If you look at the history of the development of piston based combustion engines, theres a lot to learn and catastrophic failures involving stuff blowing up happens on the extreme ends. For instance you cant run petrol very lean without risking your engine and thats a lot of air and air can be compressed. Water that cant be compressed can stall the engine while engines are also designed to brake by trying to uncompress a vacuum and even take in exhaust gases as part of its pollution control which would contain a lot more CO2, other gases and even more water. Water getting into the engine isnt as serious now as it used to be unless you drive a french/italian car as they only design their car to work in their country and not the rest of the world (like malaysia which is very humid and tend to have a lot of problems because of that). Its just very important to note that if your engine stalls because of water not to try and start it and do a flush.

In dry countries, the service interval is twice as long compared to malaysia, the high humidity and heat gets a lot of water and dirt that both the oil and filters need to be replaced more often, so even in good conditions dirt gets into the engine too. Im just saying that for any decent manufacturer, they would've taken impurities into account (including the horrible sand and dirt that can scratch your engine inside) and it would be fine, so the OP has nothing to worry about and that if the engine stalls all of a sudden not to restart it and get it flushed.

This post has been edited by System Error Message: Dec 11 2018, 11:59 PM