Arbroath: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Provided it hasn't been started, you can worry far less than you likely are. Everyone in Arbroath starts with "have I wrecked it?", and the honest answer is normally no: petrol resting inside the tank of any diesel remains harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into the system. Keep it like that: leave your engine off then call Petrol in Diesel. Below, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it might have got, and how to stop it happening to you again.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. Extremely fine clearances are built into the injectors and the high-pressure pump, and only the diesel running through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
Petrol does the first job badly and the second not at all. The rattling comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the lubrication the system depends on, and any pump working on such a blend is wearing itself.
Put those together and the shape of the problem is plain. Contact doesn't do the damage — circulation does. Where the petrol is only inside the tank, it's an issue of fuel, nothing more. The beginning of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Petrol in a diesel around Arbroath: how bad is it? Four situations
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. That petrol is inside the tank and only that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one situation that can only really take place on a forecourt, as anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Started for a moment, or just your ignition on. Your system has been primed, and so petrol has left the tank and got to the filter and your lines. Still normally simple: drain, flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Your pump now spent a few miles on diluted fuel — that is what driving the car meant. How hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far, and the work covers that tank, your lines, your filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. On the school run to the local primary school, the miles is short. A run as far as Dundee, under 25 miles away, is a very different task. So is any mileage on the M90, under 50 miles from Arbroath, where your engine has been labouring hard the whole time.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Guthrie Port. Lasting damage is very rare when a car is pulled over quickly, and the fuel drain and flush-through that still come first deal with it.
Stories Arbroath people hear about petrol in a diesel
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. A fuller tank of the same mixture is all you get, since topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that guidance assumes.
If anything, the opposite holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through smaller components: that's how a newer diesel handles its fuel, and so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." This is the one that fools motorists. A petrol engine fed diesel normally won't run, so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. While the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened. Running isn't the same as fine.
An outdated fix for a distinct issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." What petrol has thinned stays thinned, and the petrol remains in the tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, since after it's been running some petrol lies in your filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump at the next start. Draining petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's rarely carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake easy, and only in that direction.
The moment routine stops matching the car is the moment it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and motors that are new to you. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to the nearest station. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist used to petrol: precisely when it takes place. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and your hand does what it has always done.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Arbroath
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- The first fill in a new car is the time to check your filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state which fuel to use.
- One of each in the household? Mark your key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since intending to remember is not enough.
- It sounds daft and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck the 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 have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for the rest. Count it as a backstop, then keep reading the pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner mix, so stop as soon as you notice — though remembering that the next step is unchanged. It's still not to fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel around Arbroath already?
Then, there's only a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. The attendants on the forecourt — whether at Morrisons itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help roll it clear of the petrol pump if you ask. What got in, roughly how much, and if it has run: tell us that when you ring 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a separate issue, with its own page for Arbroath, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Arbroath costs more than another
There is no fair single price for this, because the four situations above are four separate jobs. Chiefly, your cost shifts with which situation you are in. Beyond that it is the proportion — how much petrol went in against how much the tank takes — and after that where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely.
Before any quote, not after, come three questions: the fuel that got in, its quantity, and whether it's run. That's why. Given the replies, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Arbroath and where it is
Arbroath is a significant town situated in the county of Angus, Scotland, where it enjoys a coastal location. It is positioned near the North Sea, within relatively close proximity to major cities such as Dundee and Aberdeen. As a former royal burgh, Arbroath boasts a rich history and is now the largest town in its council area. The town's setting on the eastern coast of Scotland makes it a notable part of the region's landscape.
Fuel drain cover across Angus, Arbroath included
Demondale, Hayshead and Cairnie are among the spots near Arbroath that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Arbroath's DD postcode area. You need not move your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all spots where we work.
Still at the pump in Arbroath?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Keep it off. Call.