Bower Hinton: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Far less than you probably are, if it hasn't been started. Till your ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply waits there and does nothing. Which means the honest reply to the first Bower Hinton query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with your motor kept off, so it remains that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it has travelled, and how to keep it from happening again: that is the remainder of this page.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. Before it ignites, it protects — and then it burns. What keeps the surfaces inside the high-pressure pump and your injectors from wearing down against one another is the diesel passing through them — they are designed to extremely fine gaps.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. The clattering comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection your system hinges on, and any pump working on that blend is wearing itself.
The shape of the problem is clear when you put those together. Contact does not do the harm — movement does. Where that petrol is only inside the tank, it's a problem of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors further on.
Bower Hinton, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to serious
Filled but not once started — the best it gets. That petrol is inside that tank and only the tank, and the task 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.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Petrol has left the tank and reached the filter and your lines, because the system has been primed. That is normally still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and the filter seen to.
Those few miles on the road were your pump labouring on fuel thinned by petrol the whole way. How hard the car was driven counts as much as how far, and this work covers the tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole system. On the school run to Martock Church School, the mileage is short. A run as far as Wells, under 25 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M5, under 15 miles from Bower Hinton, where your engine has been working hard the whole time.
Driven till it complained. Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That is the motor telling you its fuel no longer is behaving like diesel. Stop on the spot — on the verge on Middle Street, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. Long-term damage is very unusual when a car is pulled over quickly, and the drain and flush-through that still go first sort it out.
Petrol in a diesel stories Bower Hinton people hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. A fuller tank of the same mix 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.
Not so: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. Protection matters more on modern diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through more precise parts at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." Diesel in a petrol motor normally leaves a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. While the pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
An outdated fix for a distinct fault lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." What petrol has weakened stays weakened, and that petrol stays inside your tank regardless.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol lies in your filter and lines, ready to go right back through your pump at the next start. It's also really hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
No one does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. A diesel nozzle generally will not fit a petrol car, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and just in that direction.
Habit and the car getting out of step is how it happens. A vehicle that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Two motors on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. Filling up in a hurry en route to Crewkerne, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: precisely when it takes place. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Bower Hinton people: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- In a vehicle you do not know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before your first fill: many motors print the fuel there.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember, in a household with one of each.
- It sounds silly and it does the trick: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the rest. Treat it as a safety net, then keep reading the petrol pump.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol inside the tank means a thinner mix. What to do next does not change, though — still don't start the car.
Petrol already in a diesel in Bower Hinton? Begin here
The order of things is brief, then. Never fire it up, and don't switch the ignition on. Still at the forecourt, at BP or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate problem — Bower Hinton has a page all for it.
Bower Hinton petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
There's no fair single price for this, since the four situations above are four separate tasks. The situation itself does most of the work of moving the cost. The share matters next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, followed by the position of your car and whether reaching it is safe for a technician.
That's why our technicians ask three questions before costing rather than after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Bower Hinton
Bower Hinton is a small suburban area in inland Somerset, situated near the villages of Hurst and Martock, and close to the town of Martock. Bower Hinton has a relatively low elevation of 38 metres and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing. Bower Hinton is located near the West End area and is approximately 18 miles from the city of Wells. Bower Hinton is also around 120 miles west of London.
Across Somerset and in Bower Hinton: fuel drain cover
Bower Hinton rests in the TA postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the spots around it as well — Hurst, Martock and West End among them. No need to move the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all places where we work.
In Bower Hinton and still at the pump?
Then you are in the best place there is. Switched off it remains; then call.