Petrol in a Diesel Car in Bottesford: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you already are — as long as no one has started the car. Until the ignition primes your pump, your starter turns, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to the first Bottesford question — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To leave the car like that, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave your engine switched off. The rest of this page covers what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. Before it ignites, it protects — then it ignites. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from grinding against one another is your diesel passing through them — they're designed to very fine tolerances.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. It's runnier than diesel and strips away the protection the fuel system depends on, and so a pump running on a petrol mix is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is made to resist igniting under compression, which is the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
Seen together, they make clear the shape the issue has. The harm is done by movement, not by contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel issue. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the injectors downstream.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our technicians see around Bottesford
The best case there is: filled up, not once started. That petrol is in that tank and only that tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one scenario that can only really occur at a forecourt, because anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
The ignition turned on, or a brief start. With the system primed, the lines and filter now contain petrol that came from your tank. That's normally still a straightforward job — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Those few miles driven meant the pump working on fuel thinned by petrol the whole way. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the entire circuit: that is this work, and the way the vehicle was driven counts as much as the distance. Driving the children to Bottesford Infant School is one kind of trip. Very different again: a run to Kingston upon Hull, under 25 miles away, or any miles on the M180, under a mile from Bottesford, where the motor kept working hard.
Driven on until it protested — rattling, smoke, an uneven idle, a soft throttle. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Manor Road. What goes first is still the drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with lasting damage very unusual when a vehicle is pulled over quickly.
What Bottesford people get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mix. That guidance supposes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through more precise components: that is how a modern diesel moves its fuel, and so the protection counts more, not less.
One myth that catches motorists out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Diesel in a petrol motor generally leaves a motor that won't run: the motorist stops, and so does the harm. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, ticks over and drives away like nothing has happened — all while its pump is wearing. Fine and running are not the same at all.
An outdated workaround for a separate issue lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It doesn't put back what petrol has weakened, and that petrol is still inside that tank later on.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump on the next start. Clearing petrol into a can by the kerbside is also genuinely risky.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
Nobody does it on purpose, and it is seldom carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle, yet the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and only in one direction.
The moment routine stops matching your car is the moment it happens. A vehicle that is new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Racing for a train at Scunthorpe and fuelling up en route. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: precisely when it happens. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Bottesford
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Inspect the filler flap. Plenty of motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any vehicle you do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember, in a home with one of each.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It seems daft. It works.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- Stop as soon as you notice. Less petrol in your tank means a thinner mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel around Bottesford? Begin here
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off as well. Yet on the forecourt, at JET or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the petrol pump. What went in, about how much, and if it has run: tell us those when you ring 0333 366 0103.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That is a different fault — corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Bottesford.
One petrol in a diesel job around Bottesford costs more than another. Why?
There is no honest single quote for this, since the four situations above are four different tasks. Mostly, your cost shifts with which one you're in. Beyond that it's the proportion — how much petrol went in against how much the tank takes — and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
What got in, how much, and if it has run — three questions we ask before pricing, not after, for precisely that reason. Those replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Bottesford itself
Bottesford is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Lincolnshire, with a relatively low elevation of 29 metres. Bottesford lies near several neighbouring communities, including Ashby, Yaddlethorpe, and Riddings, and is located approximately 18 miles from Kingston upon Hull. Bottesford has a population of around 4351 residents, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Bottesford is also within commuting distance to larger cities, being around 143 miles from London.
Across Lincolnshire and in Bottesford: fuel drain cover
Petrol in diesel calls around Bottesford — part of the DN postcode area — go to vans that also cover the locations about it, Ashby, Yaddlethorpe and Riddings among them. You need not move your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all places where we work.
At the petrol pump in Bottesford, still?
Then, you couldn't be in a better spot. Call, and keep it switched off.