--- title: Abbotskerswell: Petrol in a Diesel Car, Explained canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/petrol-in-diesel/abbotskerswell-devon/ location: Abbotskerswell county: Devon latitude: 50.507670 longitude: -3.613350 service: Petrol in a Diesel Car updated: 2026-10-11 --- # Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Abbotskerswell Probably less than you are now — as long as nobody has started the vehicle. Till the ignition primes your pump, your starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just rests there and does no harm. Which means the truthful reply to that first Abbotskerswell query — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with your engine kept off, so it remains that way. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time. ## The motor and petrol in a diesel: what happens Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey through a motor. It protects first, and only then does it burn. What keeps the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors from grinding against each other is the diesel flowing through them — they're designed to extremely fine gaps. Petrol does the first job poorly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on the mixture to wear itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the knocking. Put those together and the shape of the problem is plain. Contact doesn't do the damage — circulation does. Petrol in a tank is a fuel fault. After the pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical issue has started: anything shed by a pump that's grinding travels downstream to the fuel injectors with the fuel. ## Abbotskerswell, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to major The best case there is: filled up, not once started. At a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still confined to the tank — since everywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The job is emptying and flushing on the spot. Ignition on, or started for a second. The fuel system has been primed, and so petrol has left your tank and got to the fuel filter and the lines. Drain, flush, deal with the fuel filter: still usually straightforward. Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent those miles working on weakened fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the entire system: that's the work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the mileage. On the school run to Abbotskerswell Primary School, the distance is short. A run as far as Exeter, under 25 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M5, under 15 miles from Abbotskerswell, where the engine has been running hard throughout. Driven until it protested. Clattering, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is the engine signalling fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Slade Lane, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. Lasting damage is very uncommon if a vehicle is pulled over early, and the fuel drain and flush-through that still go first take care of it. ## Petrol in a diesel stories Abbotskerswell people hear "Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank just holds more of the same blend. The idea behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong. Not so: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. More precise components and higher pressure are how a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less. One myth that catches drivers out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. A petrol engine fed diesel normally won't run, and so the motorist stops and the harm stops with them. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile the pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It is an old workaround for a different issue. None of what petrol thinned gets put back by it — and afterwards, the tank still contains that petrol. Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." After the engine has run, some of that petrol is no longer in that tank: it's in the filter and the fuel lines, and it goes straight back through the pump at the next start. Besides, petrol drained into a can by the road is truly risky. ## Why petrol in a diesel takes place at all Carelessness is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the mistake runs one way. Routine and your car falling out of step is when it happens. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps laid out differently. A hurried fill on the way to Newton Abbot with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it happens. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over. ## Abbotskerswell drivers: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time - The label is what counts, so read the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. - In a motor you do not know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: many vehicles state the fuel there. - Label the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember. - Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, perhaps, yet it works. - While you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put your phone away. - Some diesels have a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the pump. - The moment you realise, stop: less petrol in that tank makes a weaker mix. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't fire it up. ## Abbotskerswell: already put petrol in a diesel? Then the order of things is brief. Never crank it, and don't switch your ignition on. Still at the forecourt, at Texaco or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the car away from the pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, about how much, and whether it has run. If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That is a separate issue — corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection — and it has its own page for Abbotskerswell. ## What makes one Abbotskerswell petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next The four situations above are four different tasks, so no single price for this would be honest. What shifts your cost is chiefly which of them you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that got in as a proportion of what the tank takes, then the spot the vehicle is in and whether a van can reach it safely. Three questions come first, before any quote, instead of after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Given those answers, you get a straight figure instead of a range. ## About Abbotskerswell Abbotskerswell is a small village in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of 31 metres, approximately 15 miles from Exeter. Abbotskerswell has a population of around 891 residents, with a predominance of detached housing. Abbotskerswell is close to nearby places such as Two Mile Oak Cross, Stoneycombe, and Wolborough, and is about 166 miles from London. ## Fuel drain cover around Abbotskerswell and across Devon The teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Abbotskerswell, in the TQ postcode area, equally work the locations around it, Two Mile Oak Cross, Stoneycombe and Wolborough included. You need not move your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations we drain. ## Abbotskerswell: still at the pump? Then you are in the best position there can be. Keep it off. Phone.