Petrol in a Diesel Car in Bankfoot: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you already are — provided no one has started it. Till your ignition primes your pump, your starter cranks, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just waits there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to that first Bankfoot question — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with the engine left off, and so it remains that way. The rest of this page explains what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It lubricates first, and after that does it burn. Designed to extremely fine gaps, your injectors and the pump depend on the diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Petrol handles the first task poorly and the second not at all. The clattering 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 hinges on, and any pump running on such a mix is wearing itself.
Put those together and the shape of the issue is clear. It's movement that causes the damage, not contact. Petrol in the tank is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, borne by your fuel, into your injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on the petrol is where a mechanical issue starts.
Petrol in a diesel in Bankfoot: how bad is it? Four cases
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. Just the tank has petrol in it, so the task is draining the tank and rinsing your system where the car sits. This scenario can only really occur at a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
A moment's running, or merely the ignition on. Petrol has left the tank and got to your filter and your lines, since the system has been primed. Still usually easy: drain, flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent those miles running on diluted fuel. How hard your car was driven matters as much as how far, and this work takes in that tank, the lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the whole circuit. Short trips, such as the school run to the local primary school, are one thing. A run as far as Perth, under 10 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M90, under 10 miles from Bankfoot, where your engine has been labouring hard throughout.
Driven on until it protested — rattling, smoke, an uneven idle, a soft throttle. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Leave it where it has stopped: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Nicoll Drive. A vehicle stopped soon very seldom has permanent damage, because the drain and the flush, which still come first, deal with it.
Myths Bankfoot 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. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank just holds more of the same blend. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that guidance assumes.
Not so: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Lubrication counts more on current diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through more precise components at higher pressure.
This is the one that catches people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor generally means a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump grinds. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a different problem. It doesn't put back what petrol has diluted, and that petrol is still in that tank after that.
If the engine has been run, part of the petrol sits in your filter and the fuel lines, not that tank — and the next start sends it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" does not stand up. Emptying petrol into a can by the roadside is also genuinely risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. A diesel nozzle generally won't fit a petrol car, but the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and just in that direction.
Routine and your car getting out of step is when it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's brand new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A rushed fill en route to Dunkeld & Birnam with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. The hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Bankfoot motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- The label is what matters, and so check the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- Many motors state the fuel type inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check there on the first fill in a motor you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a house with one of each.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new car, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol inside your tank means a weaker mix. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Bankfoot: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is short. Do not fire it up, and do not turn your ignition on. If you're still at the forecourt — Gulf or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push the car clear of the pump. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the rough quantity, and if it's run.
If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That's a separate problem — corrosion and deposits and not lost protection — and it has its own page for Bankfoot.
Why one petrol in a diesel job in Bankfoot costs more than another
Four separate tasks sit behind the four scenarios above — which is why there's no fair single price. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts the cost. After that it's the share — how much petrol got in against how much your tank holds — and after that where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely.
What got in, how much, and whether it has run — three questions our technicians ask before quoting, not after, for exactly that reason. The replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Bankfoot itself
Bankfoot is a village situated on the banks of the River Tay in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, with a mix of rural and residential areas. Bankfoot has a relatively low elevation of 71 metres and is located near several small settlements, including Over Blelock and Waterloo. Bankfoot is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is close to the city of Perth, which is about 7.8 miles away. Bankfoot is a small but distinct community within the wider Perth and Kinross area.
Across Perth and Kinross and around Bankfoot: fuel drain cover
Over Blelock, Waterloo and Airntully are among the places near Bankfoot that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Bankfoot's PH postcode area. No need to move your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all locations we drain.
At the petrol pump around Bankfoot, right now?
The best place there is, then — that is where you are. Leave the vehicle turned off, then ring.