Why?
Diesels are oil burners. ATF is oil. Highly refinedoil, but oil. It is (or at least was) a common practice to fill a new fuel filter with ATF when installing it on a diesel. did not seem to make the car smoke either.
If you are worried about the gasoline not lubing the pump, a little ATF will add back in and help lube the pump.
Diesels like Alchohol, Tabacco, and Firearms? Who knew?!
Thanks.
Drain the whole tank, either do it yourself or have a mechanic do it. Dispose of it all.
Don’t drive the car at all until you do.
From this cite: “What happens when you use gasoline in a diesel engine? Either something expensive or something very expensive.”
The few buck$$ you save in trying to keep a few gallons from your tank isn’t worth the risk of damage to the engine.
So, even after you drain the tank you may still need a mechanic to do other things to ensure the fuel feed system is clear.
A friend of mine accidentally filled the tank on his MB Sprinter with gasoline due to BP’s idiotic “We’re Green!” branding by making all their gas handles green, the color usually associated with diesel.
It caused $1000 worth of damage, although that might have had a lot to do with the logo on the grill.
I am going to shatter a few dreams here and ask about something that I have recently run into about operating a diesel on petrol.
First: Way back when I was in college (NC State) I owned a 1940 Buick that I ran on a mixture of about half petrol and half kerosene. Yep, it ran. Gasoline was all of thirty cents a gallon and kerosene, at the time, was about fifteen cents. I guess those were truly the good old days.
Second: Diesels do not necessarily use more fuel at higher speeds. To wit: I once owned a Peugeot 504 diesel that would deliver about 34 mpg at a steady 60 mph and 38 mpg at a steady 80 mph. Can’t totally explain that, but did it too many times for it to be a fluke.
Third: This one is a little confusing. I own a 1988 Ford F350 Dually Diesel and have, more than once, run it on pure petrol. Never for very long as it was usually to get me out of a bind one way or another. I do not like to run it on gasoline nor kerosene because of the lack of lubrication, but sometimes you do what you gotta do. Now for the next part of this story:
My daughter is in charge of an Isuzu diesel box truck at Habitat for Humanity and once one of the drivers filled it with gasoline. She, of course, called Dear Old Dad to ask what to do. As it wasn’t totally empty when filled I just told her to make a few runs with it and then top it up with diesel. Didn’t work. It would not run on even a partial tank of gasoline. I wrote to Popular Mechanics, or Science, I don’t remember which, but never received a response. Does anyone out there in diesel land have an answer? I suspected that it had something to do with the Isuzu having an electronically controlled injection system, but do not know why. I am not that familiar with the new diesels.
I also owned, for a period of seven years, a Ford 4000HD backhoe with a Perkins diesel (nothing is better) that the previous owner had consistently run on kerosene. I never ran anything but diesel in it, but evidently the kerosene did not harm it. It would also start all the way down to well below freezing without using the glow plugs…get Cummins or International to do that. In fact, in the seven years that I owned it I never knew if the glow plugs (they were in the intake manifold) worked as I never needed them.
Hence, what I am saying here is that there is nothing definite you can say about an internal combustion engine. Where would we be without them?
I can’t believe I’m the first to say something about the comedic username/OP combo…
I have a cousin who used to work at the fuel dock on the pier at Redondo Beach, CA. One day someone else mistakenly filled a boat’s diesel tank with gasoline–and my cousin told him they’d have to drain the gasoline out. They did. It took several hours. Better than the alternative.
Well, it took you long enough… 
We had a lady fill a diesel tank with a couple hundred bucks of gas, a couple years later she shot her boyfriend and got eight years in prison.
A mechanic drained the gas out, I wouldda voted not guilty on her trial, but she never brought up DV in her 45 minute Ohio Highway Patrol initial interview…
This.
This.
This.
This.