How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Angmering
Far less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Everyone in Angmering begins with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is normally no: petrol resting in your tank of a diesel stays harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the fuel system. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with the motor kept off, and so it stays that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you don't do it again.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel really does
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two things at once. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. Built to very fine gaps, the fuel injectors and your pump depend on the diesel moving through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Petrol handles the first task poorly and the second not at all. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where any clattering starts.
Combined, those make the shape of the trouble clear. Not contact but circulation is what does the damage. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. The beginning of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Four situations our technicians see around Angmering: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled, and never started: no case is better. Only that tank has petrol in it, so the job is emptying your tank and rinsing your system where the vehicle sits. This situation can only really happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. Petrol has come out of that tank and reached the filter and the lines, since the system has been bled. Drain, flush, see to the filter: still usually easy.
Those few miles on the road were your pump working on fuel weakened by petrol throughout. The work is that tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit, and how hard your car was driven counts as much as how far. The school run to St Wilfrids Catholic Primary School is one matter. A run as far as Chichester, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M23, under 25 miles from Angmering, where the motor has been running hard throughout.
Driven on until it complained — rattling, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and your motor is saying so. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on High Street, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle where it is. Permanent damage is very uncommon if a vehicle is pulled over early, and the drain and flush that still go first deal with it.
Angmering motorists and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank just holds more of the same blend. The idea behind the guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A modern diesel runs its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that catches motorists. Diesel in a petrol motor usually leaves a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually does; meanwhile your pump grinds. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It is an outdated workaround for a different problem. What petrol has diluted stays diluted, and the petrol stays inside the tank regardless.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, since after it's been running some petrol sits in your filter and lines, ready to go right back through the pump at your next start. Also, a can of petrol filled at the kerbside is truly dangerous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. A diesel nozzle mostly will not fit a petrol car, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake straightforward, and just in one direction.
The moment routine stops matching the car is the moment it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A hurried fill on the way to the nearest station with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Megane after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it happens. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Angmering
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt. The label is what matters.
- In a vehicle you do not know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before the first fill: plenty of motors print the fuel there.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on the diesel's key when a house has one of each. So mark it.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems daft. It works.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the remainder. Count it as a safety net, then keep reading the pump.
- Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol in the tank makes a weaker blend. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start the car.
Angmering: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is brief, then. Never crank it, and do not turn your ignition on. Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's Asda or somewhere else. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it's a separate fault, with its own page for Angmering, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel task around Angmering costs more than another. Why?
Four different jobs sit behind the four scenarios above — which is why there's no honest single price. Mostly, the cost moves with which one you're in. The proportion matters next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of the car and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
What got in, how much, and whether it's run — three queries our engineers ask before costing, not after, for precisely that reason. Their replies are what change a range into one firm number.
About Angmering and its setting
Angmering is a coastal village in West Sussex, situated near the South Downs National Park and close to the towns of East Preston and Chichester. Angmering has a population of around 2842 people and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Angmering sits at a low elevation of around 6 metres above sea level, making it a relatively flat and low-lying area. Angmering is also near to other small settlements such as Hammerpot and Hangleton.
Across West Sussex and around Angmering: fuel drain cover
The vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs in Angmering, in the BN postcode area, also work the locations around it, Hammerpot, East Preston and Hangleton included. The vehicle does not need to come to us: our engineers drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
At the pump in Angmering, right now?
Then, you couldn't be in a better spot. Ring, and keep it switched off.