Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Ashbury
Not started? Then less anxious than you likely are. Everyone in Ashbury starts with "have I wrecked it?", and the honest answer is normally no: petrol resting in the tank of any diesel stays harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the system. Keep it like that: leave the motor off then phone Petrol in Diesel. The rest of this page covers what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Passing through an engine, diesel does two things at once. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Extremely fine clearances are built into your injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only your diesel flowing through stops those surfaces grinding together.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is thinner than diesel and strips out the protection your 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 is where any clattering comes.
Combined, those make the shape of the problem clear. It is movement that does the damage, not contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into the injectors further along, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical issue begins.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four situations we see in Ashbury
Filled up, and never started: no case is better. Only that tank has petrol in it, and so the job is clearing the tank and rinsing the system where the car sits. This scenario can only truly happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
A brief spell of running, or just your ignition on. Petrol has left the tank and got to the filter and the fuel lines, because the system has been primed. Still usually straightforward: drain, flush, and your filter dealt with.
The pump has spent a few miles on thinned fuel — that's what driving it does. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the whole circuit: that's this work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the mileage. The school run to Ashbury With Compton Beauchamp Church of England Primary School is one thing. A run as far as Oxford, under 25 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M4, under 5 miles from Ashbury, where your engine has been working hard the whole time.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and the engine is saying so. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Chapel Lane, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the vehicle where it is. The fuel drain and flush still come first, and they deal with it: when a vehicle is stopped quickly, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Ashbury people and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank just carries more of the same mixture. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that advice assumes.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the opposite. A newer diesel sends its fuel through finer components at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that fools people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it generally won't run, and so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. Whilst the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old workaround, meant for another issue. The petrol is still in that tank afterwards, and what it has diluted isn't put back.
The next start draws petrol back round the pump from the lines and the filter, where some of that sits once the motor has been run. That's why draining your tank yourself doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. Besides, petrol cleared into a can by the road is truly dangerous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. So the mistake runs one way.
It takes place when routine and the car stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to Swindon. The first fill-up in a diesel Skoda Octavia after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it takes place. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Ashbury people: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- The label is what matters, so check the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- In a car you do not know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before the first fill: many motors print the fuel there.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key when a home has one of each. So label it.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop at once. A weaker blend results from less petrol inside that tank, but the next step remains the same: don't fire it up.
Ashbury: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on the ignition. If you're still at the forecourt — Shell or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push the vehicle away from the pump. What was put in, about how much, and if it has run: tell us those when you ring 0333 366 0103.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Ashbury page.
What makes one Ashbury petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
The four scenarios above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be fair. What shifts your cost is chiefly which of them you are in. After that it's the share — how much petrol got in against how much that tank holds — and after that where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure when the answers are in.
About Ashbury itself
Ashbury is a small village in Oxfordshire, situated in the south of the county, with a population of around 588 people. Ashbury sits at an elevation of 134 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Kingstone Winslow and Idstone. Ashbury is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Ashbury is located approximately 20 miles from Oxford and 64 miles from London, making it a quiet inland community.
Fuel drain cover across Oxfordshire, Ashbury included
Petrol in diesel jobs around Ashbury — part of the SN postcode area — go to vans that likewise cover the locations about it, Kingstone Winslow, Idstone and Bishopstone included. Our engineers drain wherever your car is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
Ashbury: still at the petrol pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better spot. Keep it turned off, then ring.