How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Boscombe
If it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you likely are. "Have I ruined it?" is the first thing everyone in Boscombe asks, and the honest answer is normally no, since petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it's dragged through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. Keep it that way: leave the motor off then phone Petrol in Diesel. The rest of this page covers what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two things at the same time. It protects first, and after that does it burn. Designed to extremely fine tolerances, the fuel injectors and your pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. The rattling comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the lubrication the fuel system depends on, and any pump running on such a blend is wearing itself.
Put these together and the shape of the problem is plain. It is circulation that does the damage, not contact. Where that petrol is only in the tank, it is a problem of fuel, nothing more. The beginning of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four scenarios our technicians see around Boscombe: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, never started. The best case there is. Just the tank has petrol in it, and so the task is draining the tank and purging the fuel system where the vehicle sits. This scenario can only truly happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, your car got there by being driven.
A moment's running, or just your ignition on. Petrol has come out of your tank and reached the fuel filter and the lines, because the system has been primed. That's normally still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and your filter seen to.
The pump now spent a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that's what driving the vehicle meant. The work is your tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire system, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. Driving the kids to St Clement's and St John's Church of England Infant School is one sort of trip. Getting as far as Southampton, under 25 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any mileage on the M27, under 25 miles from Boscombe, with your engine working hard the whole time.
Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and the engine is telling you. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Cecil Road, a lay-by, a side street — then leave it where it is. What goes first is still the drain and flush, and that sorts it out, with long-term damage very rare when a car is stopped quickly.
Boscombe drivers and the petrol in a diesel stories they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." A bigger tank of the same mixture is all you get, since topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that advice assumes.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. A current diesel sends its fuel through smaller parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that catches drivers. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally will not run, and so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually will; meanwhile the pump wears. A running engine does not mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a different issue. What petrol has weakened remains diluted, and the petrol remains inside that tank regardless.
The next start draws petrol back round the pump out of your lines and the fuel filter, where some of it ends up once your engine has been run. That's why draining the tank yourself does not sort it — a myth. Emptying petrol into a can at the roadside is also truly hazardous.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. A diesel nozzle mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle, yet the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and only in that direction.
When routine and your car stop matching, it happens. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Two vehicles on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps laid out differently. Racing for a train at Pokesdown and fuelling up en route. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist used to petrol: exactly when it occurs. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Boscombe
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most generally do. Read the pump's label; the colour is only a clue.
- Many cars state the fuel type inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check there on the first fill in any vehicle you do not know.
- Mark the key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump. It seems silly and it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make while your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- Add-on devices exist for motors without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that won't take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, so stop as soon as you realise — while remembering that your next step is unchanged. It is still not to fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Boscombe?
The order of things is brief, then. Never fire it up, and don't turn the ignition on. Ask the attendants to help you push it clear of the pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that is Esso or somewhere else. What was put in, about how much, and whether it's run: tell us those when you ring 0333 366 0103.
If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That is a different issue — corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Boscombe.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Boscombe costs more than another
There is no honest single quote for this, since the four situations above are four different tasks. What shifts your cost is chiefly which of them you are in. The ratio matters next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the location of your car and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
What was put in, how much, and if it's run — three questions our engineers ask before quoting, not after, for precisely that reason. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Boscombe
Boscombe is a coastal suburban area in Dorset, situated near the towns of Springbourne and Pokesdown. Boscombe sits at an elevation of 39 metres, overlooking the sea and forming part of the larger Bournemouth conurbation. Boscombe is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing and a population of around 13180 residents. Boscombe is located near East Cliff, with Southampton approximately 22.7 miles away and London around 91.9 miles to the northeast.
Across Dorset and around Boscombe: fuel drain cover
Boscombe rests in the BH postcode area, and the vans that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the spots around it as well — Springbourne, Pokesdown and East Cliff among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all places our engineers drain, and the car doesn't need to move to us.
Still at the petrol pump in Boscombe?
Nothing beats it: that's where you are. Switched off it stays; then call.