Diesel in the engine bay

[chrisgunton]

Had to change the drivers side dipped beam last night, and while reaching down and in to get to the bulb that there was a smell of diesel and it was oily/wet as shown below.

Thoughts? It was serviced around 2 weeks ago.






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[Technane]

Did they change the Fuel filter during the service? common when you take out the diesel fuel filter it will spill some diesel out, Dry it off and see if it returns is the only advice I can honestly give.

[Paddy_R]

As above. That big black thing with the VW logo and UFI logo is the fuel filter. Near impossible to change it without spilling some.

[Roy_01]

Perfectly possible if you use a vacuüm pump and some towels.

[Technane]

Perfectly possible if you use a vacuüm pump and some towels.

Needing towels just says your still going to spill

[Roy_01]

Hehe just precaution:) But spilling diesel/petrol over wiring and coolant hoses is not a good idea.

[Technane]

Yeah I know its slightly corrosive plus some cables heat up ....

[Deagol]

We had our Touran diesel serviced a couple of years ago and the mechanic didn't tighten the "lid" above the filter back up enough. The drive home from the dealer that day resulted in a lovely load of raw fuel sprayed into the engine bay which we noticed when we got home, got out and the thing reeked of DERV. Panicky phone call to AA (dealer closed ten minutes earlier) and the advice was to douse the whole area with warm water heavily loaded with washing up liquid to remove a lot of the oily stuff.
Yes, that did the trick to sluice away our concerns about fire risks and no, the electrics were fine. AA Patrol came round too (good old Homestart) and the technician tightened the bolts and wrapped the thing in cling film or equivalent. Major bollocking to the dealer the next morning with them doing a complimentary collection of our car, courtesy car, complete clean up (in engine bay, undertray and floor of vehicle from front to rear) and refit of the bits and return of ours with £30 of fuel to compensate for the amount lost. And one very embarrassed VW mechanic somewhere.

We've not noticed anything major in the way of spillage since at any of the services we had done.

So, Fairy liquid at the ready and you should be OK.

D

[Cuprabob]

Diesel isn't flammable at normal temperatures so isn't really a fire risk. To ignite it has to be above 125F.

Still not good to have where it shouldn't be though.

[chrisgunton]

I'll give it a clean up this weekend and see if it comes back.

Not worried about the fire risk, its more that it's where it shouldn't be!


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