How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Blackburn
Provided it has not been started, you can worry far less than you likely are. Until the ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does nothing. Which makes the truthful reply to the first Blackburn query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Leave the engine off then phone Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The rest of this page covers what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Passing through an engine, diesel does two things at the same time. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Built to very fine tolerances, the fuel injectors and the pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
The second task petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does badly. It is thinner than diesel and removes the protection the fuel system hinges on, so a pump running on a petrol blend 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.
Taken together, they make clear the shape the problem has. The damage is done by circulation, not by contact. Petrol in the tank is a fuel issue. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the injectors further on.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our engineers see around Blackburn
Filled but not once started — the best it gets. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, that petrol is still limited to that tank — because anywhere else the car was driven to get to it. The task is emptying and rinsing on the spot.
A brief spell of running, or just your ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter now hold petrol that came from that tank. Drain, flush, deal with the fuel filter: still normally straightforward.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent every one of them running on diluted fuel. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work runs to the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire system. Driving the kids to the local primary school is one kind of trip. Any distance on the M90, over 50 miles from Blackburn, means the motor working hard throughout, and a run to Aberdeen, under 10 miles away, is a very different job as well.
Clattering, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. That is the engine telling you its fuel no longer is acting like diesel. Stop on the spot — on the verge on Main Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they sort it out: if a vehicle is pulled over quickly, permanent damage is very rare.
Petrol in a diesel myths Blackburn people hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine" — a myth. It will not. A fuller tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that guidance supposes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller components: that's how a newer diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication matters for more, not less.
The myth that catches drivers out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. A petrol motor fed diesel normally will not run, so the driver stops and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally fires up, ticks over and pulls away like nothing happened — all while its pump wears. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a different problem. None of what petrol diluted gets put back by it — and later, the tank still holds the petrol.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." Once your engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer inside the tank: it is in your filter and the fuel lines, and it goes straight back through the pump on your next start. And, a can of petrol filled at the roadside is genuinely risky.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. One way only, since of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
It occurs when habit and the car stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's brand new. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. Fuelling up in a hurry en route to Kintore, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, the hand just does what it always has.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up in Blackburn
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar vehicle is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, plenty of motors state which fuel to use.
- One of each in the home? Mark your key to the diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new car, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for vehicles without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Stop as soon as you notice. Less petrol in that tank makes a thinner mixture. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to start it.
Blackburn: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is brief, then. Starting it is out, and so is switching on the ignition. The attendants on the forecourt — whether at Gulf itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help roll it away from the petrol pump if you ask. What got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you ring 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a different issue, with its own page for Blackburn, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
Blackburn petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
There's no honest single quote for this, because the four situations above are four different jobs. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you are in. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a proportion of what the tank holds, then the place your car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three questions: the fuel that was put in, its quantity, and whether it's run. That is why. A range turns into a straight figure when the replies are in.
About Blackburn itself
Blackburn is a town situated on the banks of the River Don in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with an elevation of around 81 metres. Blackburn lies approximately 8 miles west of Aberdeen, and its residents have easy access to the city's amenities. Blackburn has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Blackburn is close to nearby places such as Muir of Kinellar and Kinellar, which provide additional local services and amenities.
Across Aberdeenshire and in Blackburn: fuel drain cover
Blackburn waits in the AB postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots near it as well — Muir of Kinellar, Kinellar and Mill of Fintray among them. You need not move the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places we drain.
At the pump in Blackburn, still?
Nothing beats it: that's where you now are. Keep it off. Ring.