Bottom o th Moor: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Far less than you likely are, if it has not been started. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first question everyone in Bottom o th Moor asks, and the truthful answer is usually no, because petrol resting in a diesel tank harms nothing until it is drawn through your fuel system — by ignition priming, by the starter, or by driving. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with the motor kept off, and so it stays that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey through a motor. It combusts, and before it combusts it protects. Made to extremely fine clearances, the fuel injectors and your pump depend on the diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump running on the mixture to wear itself. It's equally made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the knocking.
Taken together, they make clear what shape the problem has. It's movement that causes the damage, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel issue. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the injectors beyond it.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four situations we see in Bottom o th Moor
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. On a forecourt, and really only there, the petrol is still limited to your tank — because anywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The job is emptying and flushing on the spot.
Started for a second, or only your ignition on. Once primed, your system has drawn petrol from the tank up to the filter and your lines. Still generally straightforward: drain, flush, and the filter dealt with.
Those few miles on the road meant your pump running on fuel thinned by petrol the whole way. How hard your car was driven matters as much as how far, and the work covers the tank, your lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. The school run to Claypool Primary School is one thing. Getting as far as Salford, under 15 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any distance on the M61, under 3 miles from Bottom o th Moor, with the engine working hard the whole time.
Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. That's the motor telling you its fuel no longer is behaving like diesel. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Bottom o' th' Moor, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it there. The fuel drain and flush still come first, and they sort it out: if a vehicle is pulled over soon, permanent damage is very unusual.
Myths Bottom o th Moor motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a fuller tank, still the same mix. That guidance assumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
"Modern diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. Lubrication counts more on newer diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through smaller parts at higher pressure.
One myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it usually 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, as it usually will; meanwhile the pump wears. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It is an outdated workaround for a distinct problem. None of what petrol weakened is put back by it — and afterwards, your tank still contains the petrol.
The next start draws petrol back round the pump out of your lines and the filter, where some of that ends up once the motor has been run. That's why draining the tank yourself doesn't sort it — a myth. It is also really dangerous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
No one does it on purpose, and it's rarely carelessness. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle at all. So the slip runs one way.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it takes place. Any vehicle that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Two motors on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. Fuelling up in a hurry en route to Horwich Parkway, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it happens. The hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Next time you fill up in Bottom o th Moor: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- In a car you do not know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before the first fill: many motors state the fuel there.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on the diesel's key when a household has one of each. So mark it.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" aloud. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Count it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol in that tank means a weaker mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still do not fire it up.
Bottom o th Moor: already put petrol in a diesel?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on the ignition. Still on the forecourt, at Texaco or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. What got in, about how much, and if it has run: tell us that when you ring 0333 366 0103.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Bottom o th Moor page.
One petrol in a diesel task around Bottom o th Moor costs more than another. Why?
There's no honest single price for this, because the four scenarios above are four different tasks. What moves your cost is mostly which of them you're in. After that it's the share — how much petrol was put in against how much the tank holds — and after that where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Those replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Bottom o th Moor and its setting
Bottom o th Moor is a village in Greater Manchester, situated near several lakes in the North West region of England. Bottom o th Moor sits at an elevation of 235 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Bottom o th Moor is located near other small villages such as Wallsuches and Montcliffe, and is approximately 12 miles from the city of Salford. Bottom o th Moor has a population of around 620 people, who live in a rural setting with nearby amenities.
Bottom o th Moor and Greater Manchester: where our fuel drain cover runs
Bottom o th Moor waits in the BL postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the places near it as well — Wallsuches, Montcliffe and Wilderswood among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all spots we work, and the vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
In Bottom o th Moor and still at the pump?
Then, you could not be in a better spot. Phone, and keep it switched off.