Aykley Heads: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Far less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Till the ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply waits there and does no harm. Which makes the truthful reply to that first Aykley Heads query — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Keep it that way: leave your motor off then call Petrol in Diesel. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it's travelled, and how to stop it from happening again: that is the remainder of this page.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Diesel has two tasks on its way through a motor. It ignites, and before it combusts it lubricates. What keeps the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from grinding against each other is your diesel passing through them — they're designed to very fine gaps.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump on the blend to wear itself. It is equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you get the rattling.
Taken together, they make clear what shape the trouble takes. Not contact but movement is what does the harm. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by the fuel, into the injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical issue starts.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our engineers see in Aykley Heads
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. Only the tank has petrol in it, and so the job is clearing your tank and cleaning your system where the car stands. This scenario can only truly happen at a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
The ignition switched on, or a brief start. With the system primed, your lines and filter already contain petrol that has come from your tank. Still generally straightforward: drain, flush, and your filter seen to.
Driven a few miles. Now your pump has spent these miles working on diluted fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel run through the whole system: that's the work, and the way your car was driven counts as much as the mileage. A school run to Framwellgate Moor Primary School is one thing. A run as far as Durham, under a mile away, is a very different job. So is any miles on the A1(M), under 3 miles from Aykley Heads, where the engine has been running hard the whole time.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. That is your engine telling you its fuel has stopped behaving like diesel. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Old Dryburn Way, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle where it is. The drain and flush still come first, and they take care of it: if a car is pulled over quickly, permanent damage is very unusual.
Stories Aykley Heads motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. A fuller tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that advice supposes.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that's how a modern diesel moves its fuel, and so the protection matters for more, not less.
This is the one that catches drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, ticks over and drives away like nothing has happened — all while its pump wears. Fine and running are not the same thing.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old fix, supposed for another problem. What petrol has diluted stays diluted, and that petrol stays inside the tank regardless.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, ready to go right back through the pump at the next start. On top of that, petrol emptied into a can by the road is genuinely hazardous.
Why petrol in a diesel happens at all
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's rarely carelessness. One way only, since of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol motor. That is how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
When habit and the vehicle stop matching, it happens. Any motor that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Two cars on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps laid out differently. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Durham. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Tiguan, its first fuelling, and a driver used to petrol: exactly when it occurs. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit wins.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Aykley Heads
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most generally do. Check the pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check your filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many vehicles state which fuel to use.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key if a home has one of each. So label it.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds silly. It works.
- Whilst you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Noticing it halfway? Stop there and then. A weaker blend results from less petrol inside your tank, yet the next stage stays the same: do not start it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Aykley Heads already?
The order of things is short, then. Don't turn the ignition on, and don't fire it up. If you're still at the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you push it away from the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's been run.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, where petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Aykley Heads page.
What makes one Aykley Heads petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
Four separate tasks lie behind the four situations above — which is why there is no honest single quote. Which of them you are in is mostly what moves your cost. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what the tank takes, then the spot your car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Three questions come first, before quoting, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. A range turns into a straight figure when the replies are in.
About Aykley Heads and its setting
Aykley Heads is a locality situated near the city of Durham, lying at an elevation of 93 metres in the inland area of County Durham. Aykley Heads is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is located close to nearby places such as North End and Whitesmocks. Aykley Heads has a population of approximately 1644 residents and is situated about 0.6 miles from Durham city centre.
Across Durham and around Aykley Heads: fuel drain cover
Our vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Aykley Heads, in the DH postcode area, also work the locations near it, North End, Whitesmocks and Western Hill included. The vehicle doesn't need to move to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
In Aykley Heads and still at the pump?
The best place there is, then — that is where you are. Call, and leave it switched off.