How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Bonnington
Not started? Then less worried than you likely feel. Till the ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply waits there and does no harm. Which means the truthful reply to the first Bonnington question — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. To keep the vehicle like that, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. The remainder of this page sets out 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.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
On its way through a motor, diesel has two tasks. It burns, and before it ignites it protects. What stops the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the injectors from wearing down against one another is your diesel flowing through them — they're made to very fine gaps.
Petrol does the first task badly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump running on that mixture wearing itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the rattling.
Taken together, they show what shape the problem takes. Not contact but circulation is what causes the harm. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. 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 the fuel injectors further on.
Petrol in a diesel around Bonnington: how bad is it? Four situations
The best case there is: filled up, never started. Being on a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol held inside your tank alone, it is drained and cleaned right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Once primed, the system has drawn petrol out of that tank as far as the fuel filter and your lines. Still generally simple: drain, flush, and the filter seen to.
The pump has worked a few miles on diluted fuel — that's what driving it meant. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the whole circuit: that is this work, and the way your car was driven counts as much as the miles. The school run to the local primary school is one matter. Driving as far as Edinburgh, under 3 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any miles on the M8, under 10 miles from Bonnington, with the engine labouring hard the whole time.
Driven till it protested. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Stop on the spot — on the verge on Elizafield, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. What goes first is still the drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with long-term damage very rare if a vehicle is pulled over soon.
Bonnington motorists and the petrol in a diesel stories they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mix. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance supposes.
Not so: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. At higher pressure, through finer components: that's how a current diesel moves its fuel, so the protection counts for more, not less.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." Diesel in a petrol motor usually leaves a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the harm. Whilst your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened. 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 weakened gets put back by it — and afterwards, your tank still contains the petrol.
Once your engine has been run, part of that petrol sits in the filter and the lines, not the tank — and the next start pulls it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't stand up. Emptying petrol into a can by the roadside is also genuinely risky.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. A diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol motor, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error easy, and just in that direction.
When habit and your car stop matching, it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Filling up in a rush en route to Edinburgh Waverley, with a train to catch. Exactly the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Clio for the first time. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and your hand does what it has always done.
Bonnington motorists: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Read the pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- In a motor you do not know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: many cars state the fuel there.
- Mark your key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- It seems silly and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, so put the phone away and keep your mind on the pump.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol inside your tank means a thinner mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start the car.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Bonnington?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on the ignition. The staff on the forecourt — whether at BP itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it clear of the pump if you ask. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — your fuel, the approximate amount, and if it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different problem — Bonnington has a page all for it.
What makes one Bonnington petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
Four separate tasks lie behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single price. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts the cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a share of what your tank takes, then the place the car is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
Before any quote, not after, come three queries: your fuel that went in, the volume, and whether it has run. That is why. With the replies, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Bonnington
Bonnington is a coastal suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 1.2 miles from Edinburgh city centre. Bonnington lies near the shores of the Firth of Forth, at a low elevation of around 13 metres, and is bordered by nearby places such as Pilrig, Leith, and Broughton. Bonnington is predominantly composed of flat-type housing, which accommodates its population of around 12,224 residents.
Across City of Edinburgh and around Bonnington: fuel drain cover
Pilrig, Leith and Broughton are among the locations around Bonnington that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Bonnington's EH postcode area. Our engineers drain wherever your vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
At the petrol pump in Bonnington, still?
The best spot there is, then — that is where you are. Leave it turned off, then ring.