Petrol in a Diesel Car in Barnham: How Worried Should You Be?
If it hasn't been started, worry far less than you likely are. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first thing anyone around Barnham asks, and the truthful answer is normally no, because petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it is drawn through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. Petrol in Diesel is who to call, with the motor left off, so it stays 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 again.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route through a motor. It combusts, and before it ignites it lubricates. Built to extremely fine gaps, the fuel injectors and your pump depend on your diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. The rattling comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection the fuel system hinges on, and any pump running on such a blend is wearing itself.
The shape of the trouble is plain once you put those together. Not contact but circulation is what causes the harm. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors further on.
Petrol in a diesel in Barnham: how serious is it? Four cases
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. The petrol is inside that tank and just the tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one scenario that can only truly take place at a forecourt, because anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or just your ignition on. Once primed, the system has drawn petrol out of the tank as far as your filter and your lines. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still normally easy.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them working on thinned fuel. Miles is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way this work runs to the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. A school run to Barnham Primary School is one thing. Very different a second time: a trip to Chichester, under 10 miles away, or some mileage on the A3(M), under 25 miles from Barnham, where the motor kept labouring hard.
Driven till it protested. Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Church Lane, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle where it is. Long-term damage is very rare if a vehicle is pulled over quickly, and the drain and flush that still come first take care of it.
Myths Barnham motorists 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 mix is all it gives, since topping up takes out nothing. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
Not so: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. Protection matters more on current diesels, not less, since their fuel passes through more precise components at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, so there is no harm" — the myth that catches most drivers than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it normally will not run, and so the driver stops — and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst your pump grinds. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct issue. It does not put back what petrol has thinned, and the petrol is still in the tank afterwards.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." Once your engine has run, some of that petrol is no longer in that tank: it is in your filter and the fuel lines, and it goes right back through your pump at the next start. And, a can of petrol drained at the roadside is genuinely risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs at all
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. One way only, since of the nozzles: the slimmer petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol car. That is how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
Routine and the car getting out of step is when it happens. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and motors that are new to you. Two vehicles on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps arranged differently. Fuelling up in a rush on the way to the nearest station, with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. With rain, a call coming in, or children to deal with, your hand simply does what it always has.
Barnham motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar motor is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many motors state which fuel they take.
- One of each in the household? Mark your key to the diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember isn't enough.
- It sounds daft and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a thinner mixture, so stop as soon as you realise — while remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to crank it.
Barnham: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is brief. Don't switch the ignition on, and do not fire it up. Ask the staff to help you roll it away from the pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that is the nearest petrol station or anywhere else. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the rough volume, and if it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a separate fault, with its own page for Barnham, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication.
What makes one Barnham petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
A fair single quote doesn't exist here: four scenarios, four separate tasks. What moves your cost is mostly which of them you are in. Next it's the ratio — how much petrol got in against how much your tank takes — and then where the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely.
That's why our technicians ask three questions before costing instead of after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. With the answers, you get a straight figure rather than a range.
About Barnham itself
Barnham is a small village in West Sussex, situated near the coast and close to the city of Chichester. Barnham has a low elevation of around 8 metres above sea level and is surrounded by other nearby places such as West Barnham, Eastergate, and Woodgate. Barnham is predominantly composed of terraced housing and is home to approximately 2050 residents. Barnham is located about 51.7 miles from London, making it a relatively accessible rural community.
Barnham and West Sussex: where our fuel drain cover runs
The teams answering petrol in diesel calls in Barnham, in the PO postcode area, also work the locations around it, West Barnham, Eastergate and Woodgate among them. The vehicle does not need to move to us: our engineers drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
Barnham: still at the pump?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Leave the vehicle turned off, then ring.