Bildeston: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Probably less than you already are — provided nobody has started the vehicle. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the engine until something draws it through the system — your ignition priming the pump, the starter, or driving itself. So the fair answer to the first question everyone in Bildeston asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. Keep it like that: leave your motor off then call Petrol in Diesel. Read on 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 repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Passing through an engine, diesel does two jobs at once. It protects first, and only then does it burn. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from grinding against one another is your diesel flowing through them — they're built to very fine tolerances.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on that mixture wearing itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the clattering.
The shape of the trouble is clear once you put those together. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. Where the petrol is only inside that tank, it's a fault of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the injectors downstream.
Four situations we see around Bildeston: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled, and never started: no case is better. At a forecourt, and genuinely only there, that petrol is still confined to your tank — because everywhere else the vehicle was driven to reach it. The job is emptying and flushing on the spot.
The ignition turned on, or a short start. With the system primed, the lines and filter already hold petrol that has come from that tank. Drain, flush, see to the fuel filter: still usually easy.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent these miles working on weakened fuel. The work is the tank, your lines, your filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. Short trips, such as the school run to Bildeston Primary School, are one thing. Any mileage on the M11, under 50 miles from Bildeston, means the motor has worked hard throughout, and a run to Colchester, under 25 miles away, is a very different job too.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Duke Street, a lay-by or a side road, stop there and leave it. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with lasting damage very unusual when a vehicle is stopped early.
Myths Bildeston motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. A fuller tank of the same mix is all you get, because topping up takes out nothing. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance presumes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. Smaller components and higher pressure are the way a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it normally won't run, and so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally fires up, idles and drives away like nothing happened — all while its pump is wearing. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
An outdated workaround for a different problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." None of what petrol weakened gets put back by it — and afterwards, that tank still contains the petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump at your next start. It is also genuinely risky to drain petrol into a can at the roadside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
It is seldom carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the slip runs one way.
Routine and the vehicle getting out of step is when it occurs. A vehicle that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. A hurried fill on the way to Stowmarket with a train to catch. Exactly the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Bildeston
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Plenty of cars state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check there on the first fill in any vehicle you do not know.
- One of each in the house? Label the key to your diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — because intending to remember is not enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- Some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol inside your tank makes a thinner blend. What to do next does not change, though — still don't crank it.
Bildeston: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is short, then. Do not turn your 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's the nearest petrol station or somewhere else. What got in, about how much, and if it's run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a separate fault — Bildeston has a page all for it.
Bildeston petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
There is no fair single price for this, since the four situations above are four separate tasks. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which situation you're in. Where the car is counts too, and whether a van can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what your tank holds.
What went in, how much, and whether it has run — three questions our technicians ask before pricing, not after, for precisely that reason. Those answers change a range into a straight figure.
About Bildeston and its setting
Bildeston is a village in Suffolk, situated in the eastern part of the county, with an elevation of around 44 metres above sea level. Bildeston lies approximately 60 miles from London and 15 miles from Colchester, making it a rural community with easy access to larger towns. Bildeston has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the village. Bildeston is surrounded by other small villages, including Nedging, Chelsworth, and Wattisham Stone.
Bildeston and Suffolk: where our fuel drain cover runs
Nedging, Chelsworth and Wattisham Stone are among the spots near Bildeston that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Bildeston's IP postcode area. No need to bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places we drain.
In Bildeston and still at the petrol pump?
Then you are in the best place there can be. Ring, and keep it switched off.