Advice needed, 2011 Smart Car CDI (contaminated fuel)

[ManJ]

Afternoon guys and girls
I have a 2011 Smart Passion CDI which started running rough at the start of the month, this later turned into a delayed start etc, now it takes it time to start but then when up and running runs fine after first minute of rough idle.

Mercedes have checked everything and have diagnosed it as contaminated fuel, I have always filled it up at my local Shell with V power on every second tank.

Mercedes have told me that the fuel is orange, I can find the reciepts of which I filled with as it goes nowhere else. Mercedes have told me that they will not cover this under warrenty and need to strip out the injectors, filter, fuel lines and tank and clean so its looking pricey.

Where would I look for the financial side of it?

Any comments welcome.

 

[ManJ]

Guys, I now have a sample of the fuel, people are saying its water in the diesel.

Any idea how to remove?

 

[Bellow]

people are saying its water in the diesel.

Any idea how to remove?

There are treatments that will help seperate the water from the Diesel such that the water can be drained off from the bottom.
What quantity of fuel (max 33litres?) - but why not just bin the contaminated fuel?

 

[bolide]

If you have receipts for the fuel, and can tie them to the mileage of the car, and they're all from one petrol station I think I'd be sending a recorded letter to the garage owners with a copy of the Mercedes repair invoice

I wouldn't expect them to go quietly, though...

Nick Froome

 

[ManJ]

I agree, is it easy to take the tank off these? I don't mind getting hands dirty this weekend, Mercedes was £600 to drain fuel.

 

[nick mercedes]

I agree, is it easy to take the tank off these? I don't mind getting hands dirty this weekend, Mercedes was £600 to drain fuel.

Pay a normal garage to do it.

£600 to drain out some fuel is daylight robbery.

 

[wemorgan]

Dr Fuel did mine for £150.

 

[ManJ]

Ok, will get on it... Thanks, water shouldn't have caused damage right? So I need to drain, fill with clean and change the filter?

 

[jaymanek]

It can cause severe damage. The best thing to do now is drain the complete fuel tank, change the filter, and then pray you dont have any further issues.

 

[BTB 500]

people are saying its water in the diesel.

Previously the fuel was 'orange'??

Who is saying it's water contamination (is this the result of analysis, or a guess)?

 

[ManJ]

The fuel is pineapple juice colour, the result of analysis is that its water.

 

[ManJ]

Running Wynns Dry Fuel is meant to do the trick, got a bottle and in it goes in the morning.

Loads of reviews on the Internet, apparently it works within 15 minutes.

 

[ManJ]

Put in Whynns dry fuel with 5 litres of fuel and worked a treat! All seems fixed, let's hope it stays this way!

 

[WastedCharlie]

Put in Whynns dry fuel with 5 litres of fuel and worked a treat! All seems fixed, let's hope it stays this way!

Hi ManJ,
I've just suffered 2 tanks of water contaminated fuel from my local station, the advice of my garage was to try topping up with fresh fuel. They cleaned the filter, but haven't cleaned the tank and it's showing signs of trouble again less than 24 hours later. I'm desperate to fix this without having to have major work done. I'd never heard of that Wynn's stuff before, but it looks like it might be exactly what I need. How well is it working for you? Just how much bad fuel did you have?

Are there any downsides to using it?

 

[WastedCharlie]

Just to follow up for anyone else wondering how well Wynns Dry Fuel works on contaminated fuel:

After my garage cleaned the filters, I made it a shade short of 30 miles before it started stalling again.

I put a bottle of Wynns Dry Fuel into the tank (which had been filled to ~22L contaminated + 18 L fresh fuel after the filters were cleaned) and gave it an hour to settle before driving again. The result so far is that I've done another 85 miles in 5 days and it hasn't suffered any more stalls or loss of power.

However, the engine still feels and sounds like it's running less than perfectly so I'm considering giving it another bottle (waiting on a reply from Wynns about the advisability of doing that so soon), and I've a bottle of Wynns Injector Cleaner for Diesels to try to re-lubricate the injector a bit; but I'm wary of overdosing on fuel additives going in all at once so I'm topping up the tank again today before I use that.

 

[Sven2006]

I posted yesterday under heading low fuel pressure.

Six month old e220 diesel. Merc has cleaned it but cannot resolve low fuel pressure issues.

So far have replaced both pumps and working on high pressure filter and implied in an email they are in 'unknown territory' on a 651 engine. 20 per cent water contamination and another older merc in there with same problem from same forecourt.

Audi also had a case same forecourt. Audi was a 60 plate all fixed and back up and runnin.

If merc can't fix it where do we go from here?

Frustrated to say the least and any help much appreciated.