Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Bottom o th Moor
Not started? Then less anxious than you probably are. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your engine until something pulls it through the system — the ignition priming the pump, the starter, or driving itself. So the truthful answer to the first question anyone around Bottom o th Moor asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. Keep it like that: leave your motor off and call Petrol in Diesel. The rest of this page explains 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.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route through a motor. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. Designed to extremely fine gaps, the fuel injectors and the pump rely on the diesel moving through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the protection your fuel system depends on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that is where the clattering starts.
The shape of the issue is clear when you put those together. It's circulation that does the harm, not contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Once the pump has been running on that petrol, a mechanical fault has started: whatever is shed by a pump that is grinding is carried onward to the injectors with the fuel.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our technicians see around Bottom o th Moor
Filled up, and not started: nothing beats it. Only the tank has petrol in it, so the task is clearing your tank and purging the fuel system where the vehicle sits. This situation can only truly happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter already contain petrol that has come from your tank. Usually little more than emptying, purging and sorting the filter, and so still easy.
Driven a couple of miles. Now your pump has spent these miles working on diluted fuel. The work is your tank, your lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the whole circuit, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. On the school run to Harwood Meadows Primary School, the miles is small. Very different again: a run to Salford, under 10 miles away, or any distance on the St. Peter's Way, under 5 miles from Bottom o th Moor, where the engine kept working hard.
Driven until it complained. Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That's your engine telling you its fuel has stopped behaving like diesel. Stop on the spot — on the verge on Longsight Lane, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it. Lasting damage is very unusual if a vehicle is pulled over soon, and the fuel drain and flush that still come first take care of it.
Petrol in a diesel stories Bottom o th Moor drivers hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — the tank just holds more of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that is how a current diesel moves its fuel, so the lubrication counts for more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so there is no harm" — the myth that catches more people than any other. Diesel in a petrol motor usually leaves a motor that won't run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump grinds. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It is an outdated fix for a different issue. None of what petrol weakened is put back by it — and later, that tank still contains that petrol.
The next start draws petrol back round your pump out of the fuel lines and the filter, where some of it sits once the engine has run. That's why draining the tank yourself does not leave you sorted — a myth. It's also really risky to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. One way only, because of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally will not fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
The moment routine stops matching your car is the moment it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your normal forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Racing for a train at Hall i' th' Wood and fuelling up en route. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it takes place. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and your hand repeats what it has always done.
Next time you fill up in Bottom o th Moor: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — yet not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar car is the time to check your filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of cars state the fuel to use.
- One of each in the house? Label the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because meaning to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new car, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, yes, but it works.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Add-on devices exist for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that won't take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- The moment you realise, stop: less petrol inside your tank makes a weaker mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still don't crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Bottom o th Moor?
Then, there is just a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at Texaco itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it clear of the pump if you ask. What got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it is a different problem, with its own page for Bottom o th Moor, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
What makes one Bottom o th Moor petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
The four scenarios above are four different jobs, so no single quote for this would be fair. Which of them you are in is mostly what shifts the cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that got in as a share of what your tank takes, then the spot the car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three questions: your fuel that got in, the volume, and whether it's run. That is why. A range becomes a straight figure when the replies are in.
About Bottom o th Moor and where it is
Bottom o th Moor is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the River Irwell and characterised by semi-detached housing. Bottom o th Moor sits at an elevation of 117 metres, approximately 8.8 miles from Salford and 172.7 miles from London. Bottom o th Moor is surrounded by other local places, including Top o th Brow, Firwood Fold, and Castle Hill, and has a population of around 6212 residents.
Fuel drain cover across Greater Manchester, Bottom o th Moor included
Top o th Brow, Firwood Fold and Castle Hill are among the places around Bottom o th Moor that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Bottom o th Moor's BL postcode area. Our engineers drain wherever the vehicle is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
In Bottom o th Moor and still at the petrol pump?
The best place there is, then — that's where you are. Phone, and keep it switched off.