--- title: Explained: Petrol in a Diesel Car Broadlands canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/petrol-in-diesel/broadlands-devon/ location: Broadlands county: Devon latitude: 50.534100 longitude: -3.621010 service: Petrol in a Diesel Car updated: 2026-10-03 --- # Broadlands: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be Not started? Then less worried than you probably feel. Everyone in Broadlands begins with "have I wrecked it?", and the fair answer is usually no: petrol resting inside that tank of a diesel remains harmless until priming, cranking or driving draws it into the fuel system. Leave your engine off then call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it like that. 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 doesn't happen to you a second time. ## What petrol in a diesel does to the motor Two jobs fall to diesel on its route round a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Made to very fine clearances, your injectors and your 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. The clattering comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips away the lubrication your system rests on, and any pump working on that mixture is wearing itself. Put those together and the shape of the issue is clear. Contact does not do the damage — movement does. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. Once your pump has been labouring on that petrol, a mechanical problem has started: whatever is shed by a pump that's wearing down is carried downstream to the fuel injectors with the fuel. ## Broadlands, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to major Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there can be. That petrol is in that tank and just the tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle stands. This is the one scenario that can only really take place at a forecourt, because anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there. Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. Petrol has come out of the tank and got to the fuel filter and the fuel lines, since your system has been primed. That's generally still an easy job — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with. A few miles driven, and your pump has spent every one of them running on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel run through the entire circuit: that is this work, and the way the vehicle was driven matters as much as the miles. The school run to St Joseph's Catholic Primary School is one matter. Very different once more: a trip to Exeter, under 15 miles away, or some mileage on the M5, under 15 miles from Broadlands, where your engine kept labouring hard. Driven on until it complained — knocking, smoke, a lumpy idle, a dead throttle. That is your motor telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Coombeshead Road, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are and leave it. What comes first is still the drain and flush-through, and that sorts it out, with lasting damage very uncommon when a car is stopped quickly. ## Myths Broadlands 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." Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mixture. The idea behind the advice — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong. Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. Protection matters more on modern diesels, not less, since their fuel passes through finer components at higher pressure. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." This is the one that fools people. Diesel in a petrol motor usually means a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually will; meanwhile your pump grinds. Being able to run is not the same as being fine. Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It is an old workaround, meant for another issue. It doesn't put back what petrol has weakened, and that petrol is still in your tank later. If the motor has been run, part of that petrol sits in the filter and the lines, not the tank — and your next start pulls it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" does not stand up. And, a can of petrol filled at the kerbside is genuinely hazardous. ## Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place? Carelessness is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. A diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol motor, but the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake easy, and only in one direction. Routine and your car getting out of step is when it takes place. Any car that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. Racing for a train at Newton Abbot and filling up en route. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over. ## How to prevent petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up around Broadlands - Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour. - The first fill in a strange car is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of cars state which fuel to use. - A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key achieves more than any amount of intending to remember, in a house with one of each. - It sounds silly and it works: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. - Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else. - Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for the remainder. Count it as a safety net, then keep checking the petrol pump. - Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol in the tank means a weaker mixture. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up. ## Broadlands: already put petrol in a diesel? Then the order of things is short. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off too. Ask the staff to help you push it away from the pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that is the nearest petrol station or somewhere else. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, about how much, and whether it's run. If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That's a separate problem — corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Broadlands. ## What makes one Broadlands petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next An honest single quote does not exist here: four situations, four separate jobs. Chiefly, your cost moves with which one you are in. The ratio matters next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, and then the position of your car and whether getting to it is safe for our van. Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: your fuel that was put in, the amount, and whether it has run. That's why. Their answers are what turn a range into one firm number. ## About Broadlands Broadlands is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Devon, with a relatively low elevation of 36 metres. Broadlands lies near the city of Exeter, approximately 13.6 miles away, and is also close to other nearby places such as Abbotsbury and Newton Abbot. Broadlands has a population of around 6538 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Broadlands is located in the South West region of England, about 166 miles from London. ## Fuel drain cover across Devon, Broadlands included The vans answering petrol in diesel jobs in Broadlands, in the TQ postcode area, equally work the spots near it, Abbotsbury, Newton Abbot and Knowles Hill among them. Our technicians drain wherever your car is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us. ## Still at the pump in Broadlands? The best spot there is, then — that's where you are. Switched off it remains; then phone.