Barton-under-Needwood: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Likely less than you are now — as long as nobody has started the car. Until your ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to the first Barton-under-Needwood query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Keep it like that: leave your engine off then call Petrol in Diesel. The remainder 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.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel really does
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two jobs at once. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Very fine clearances go into the injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and just the diesel running through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. It is runnier than diesel and strips away the protection your fuel system hinges on, so a pump running on a petrol mixture is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is designed to resist igniting under compression, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
Combined, those leave the shape of the problem clear. It's movement that causes the harm, not contact. Petrol in the tank is a fuel problem. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four scenarios our engineers see around Barton-under-Needwood: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, and not started: nothing beats it. That petrol is in the tank and only the tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one situation that can only truly take place on a forecourt, since anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or merely your ignition on. The fuel system has been bled, and so petrol has left that tank and reached your filter and the lines. That is generally still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and the filter seen to.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent these miles working on diluted fuel. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the whole system, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. On the school run to Thomas Russell Infants School, the mileage is short. Driving as far as Lichfield, under 10 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any miles on the M42, under 10 miles from Barton-under-Needwood, with the engine working hard all the way.
Driven on until it complained — knocking, smoke, a lumpy idle, a dead throttle. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Main Street, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are and leave it. Lasting damage is very unusual if a vehicle is pulled over early, and the drain and flush-through that still go first deal with it.
What Barton-under-Needwood drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank simply holds more of the same mixture. The assumption behind the advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Modern diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. Protection matters more on newer diesels, not less, because their fuel passes through smaller parts at higher pressure.
The myth that catches people off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Diesel in a petrol motor usually means a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually fires up, ticks over and drives away like nothing happened — all the while its pump is wearing. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a distinct issue. None of what petrol thinned is put back by it — and later, your tank still holds that petrol.
Once your engine has been run, part of the petrol sits in the filter and the lines, not your tank — and your next start sends it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. And, a can of petrol filled by the roadside is truly dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the mistake runs one way.
When habit and the vehicle stop matching, it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and motors that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill en route to Burton-On-Trent. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it happens. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Barton-under-Needwood motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on each forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour.
- In a car you don't know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: plenty of vehicles state the fuel type there.
- Mark the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fill a hired or new car, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- Add-on devices are available for cars without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Less petrol makes a weaker mixture, so stop as soon as you notice — while remembering that your next step is unchanged. It's still not to fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel around Barton-under-Needwood already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off as well. Still at the forecourt, at the nearest petrol station or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. What was put in, about how much, and whether it's run: tell us that when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it's a different issue, with its own page for Barton-under-Needwood, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
Why one petrol in a diesel job in Barton-under-Needwood costs more than another
Four different tasks sit behind the four situations above — which is why there's no honest single price. What moves your cost is chiefly which of them you are in. After that it's the proportion — how much petrol was put in against how much your tank holds — and after that where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before quoting, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure when those answers are in.
About Barton-under-Needwood itself
Barton-under-Needwood is a village in Staffordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 66 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Barton-under-Needwood lies approximately 7 miles from Lichfield and 110 miles from London, making it a commuter-friendly location. Barton-under-Needwood has nearby places such as Barton Green and Barton Gate, which are part of the larger community. Barton-under-Needwood is home to around 2400 residents, who enjoy the scenic riverside setting.
Fuel drain cover around Barton-under-Needwood and across Staffordshire
Our teams answering petrol in diesel calls in Barton-under-Needwood, in the DE postcode area, equally work the places around it, Barton Green, Barton Gate and Efflinch included. The car 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.
Barton-under-Needwood: still at the pump?
The best place there is, then — that is where you are. Turned off it stays; then call.