Gas and Diesel Don't Mix

Where Are We Today

Huachuca City/Sierra Vista

Did you hear about the guy that put gas in his diesel truck, what a …. …, oh wait, that was me. No excuses, except that I had one gigantic old age brain fart.

On our first day of our trip heading home, we had driven from Quartzsite to Huachuca City. Got set up at Quail Ridge RV Park and headed into Sierra Vista to get fuel, as we had less than 2 gallons to empty, and do some shopping.

I pulled into the Valero station on the front side, driving across the end of the pumps looking for diesel, black handles, more black handles and oh, there is a yellow handle. (Diesel pumps in Ontario are yellow or green) I pull up and proceed to fill the tank with what I realized when it was almost full, was gas.

Now I’m in panic mode, what to do. I know enough to not start the truck. There is a Ford dealer right next door, so over I go to get some help. This is Saturday afternoon; the service department is closed. Five sales guys come over and push me to the dealer ship. To put the truck in neutral, I quickly turn the key to accessory and off, the same to put it back in park. Wait until Monday when service is open and we’ll get you looked after.

I am there bright and early Monday morning to see when and what is needed to be done. Two mechanics off on training, so won’t be today, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. Cost could be $900.00 to flush out the system or $14,000.00 if it got into the injectors.

After talking to family and friends, we went back to put the pressure on to just drain and flush the system, put in new fuel filters and we will be on our way.

They finally agreed to do that. While taking the fuel line off the tank they said that the connectors on the ends were cracked, so needed to order a new line, which didn’t get here until this morning. At 10:30 we got the call that it was done. Deb, from “Celebrating the Dance” gave us a ride to the dealer.

When paying the bill, the service advisor explained what they did and because it wasn’t the standard procedure by Ford, that there was no warranty on the work that they did. I said I understood and even had to sign where they had stated that on the invoice.

We have our truck and it’s running fine. There is more to this story but don’t want to bore you to death. I do want to say that if it wasn’t for one of the sales guys from Saturday that helped to push the truck, it would still be sitting there.

I can tell you that I beat myself up pretty good and we made ourselves sick thinking of the worst-case scenario, along with a couple of sleepless nights. As our B-I-L said, a year from now it will be just a memory and another story to tell. With the help of good friends, Tom and Deb, Deb and Riley, we were shuttled back and forth and at each Happy Hour, gave us laughter to forget our troubles. We thank them more than we can say. 

That’s it for now, sorry no pictures, until the next time, take care.