Bexhill: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Provided it hasn't been started, you can worry far less than you likely are. Everyone in Bexhill begins with "have I ruined it?", and the honest answer is generally no: petrol resting in your tank of any diesel stays harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into your fuel system. Leave the motor off and call Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it like that. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has got, and the way to make sure you never do it again.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel does
Diesel does two jobs on its way through a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure pump and your injectors are built to extremely fine tolerances, and your diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing down against each other.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does badly. The rattling comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips out the protection the system depends on, and any pump working on that mixture is wearing itself.
The shape of the trouble is plain once you put those together. Not contact but movement is what does the damage. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors further on.
Four situations our engineers see around Bexhill: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled but never started — the best it gets. Being at a forecourt is what makes this possible: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept in that tank alone, it's drained and rinsed right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
A brief spell of running, or merely your ignition on. The system has been bled, so petrol has left that tank and got to your filter and the fuel lines. Drain, flush, deal with the fuel filter: still usually easy.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent those miles running on thinned fuel. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. A school run to King Offa Primary Academy is one thing. Very different once more: a trip to Brighton and Hove, under 50 miles away, or any miles on the M20, under 50 miles from Bexhill, where the motor never stopped running hard.
Driven till it protested. Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That's the engine telling you its fuel no longer is acting like diesel. Leave it where it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Gatelands Drive. Permanent damage is very rare if a vehicle is stopped early, and the fuel drain and flush that still go first take care of it.
Myths Bexhill motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank just holds more of the same blend. The assumption behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller components: that is how a modern diesel moves its fuel, so the lubrication matters for more, not less.
This is the one that fools drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Any petrol engine fed diesel usually will not run, and so the driver stops and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, whilst your pump grinds. Running doesn't mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct issue. It doesn't put back what petrol has weakened, and that petrol is still inside that tank later.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, since after it's been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, ready to go right back through your pump at your next start. And, a can of petrol filled by the roadside is truly hazardous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
It's seldom carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol car at all. So the mistake runs one way.
The moment habit stops matching the vehicle is the moment it occurs. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Rushing for a train at Collington and filling up en route. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it takes place. Your hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up in Bexhill
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Check the pump's label; the colour is just a hint.
- Check your filler flap. Plenty of vehicles state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a vehicle you don't know.
- One of each in the home? Label the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember is not enough.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds daft. It works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make while your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse 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 petrol pump.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol inside that tank makes a weaker mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Bexhill: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is short, then. Don't switch your ignition on, and don't start it. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Pace itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it away from the pump if you ask. What went in, about how much, and if it's run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different fault — Bexhill has a page just for it.
Why one petrol in a diesel job in Bexhill costs more than another
There is no fair single price for this, since the four situations above are four different jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what moves the cost. The ratio counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of the vehicle and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
That's why our engineers ask three questions before pricing instead of after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Bexhill and its setting
Bexhill is a seaside town in East Sussex, situated on the coast of the English Channel at an elevation of around 39 metres. Bexhill has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are particularly prevalent, and the town is close to nearby places such as Glenleigh Park and Sidley. Bexhill is located near the South Downs National Park and is within commuting distance of London, being around 52 miles from the capital. Bexhill has a population of approximately 25651 people and includes areas such as Old Town.
Fuel drain cover in Bexhill and across East Sussex
Glenleigh Park, Sidley and Old Town are among the places around Bexhill that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Bexhill's TN postcode area. The car 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.
Still at the pump in Bexhill?
Then you are in the best spot there is. Switched off it remains; then phone.