Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Brook Bottom
Less than you probably are, provided it has not been started. Till the ignition primes the pump, your starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to the first Brook Bottom question — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. Keep it like that: leave the engine off then phone Petrol in Diesel. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. Before it combusts, it lubricates — then it burns. Very fine clearances are built into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and only the diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that's where any clattering comes.
Seen together, they make clear what shape the problem has. It is movement that causes the harm, not contact. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, carried by the fuel, into your injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical fault starts.
Four situations our technicians see around Brook Bottom: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there is: filled up, not once started. At a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still limited to your tank — since anywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The job is emptying and purging on the spot.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. Once primed, the fuel system has drawn petrol out of that tank as far as the fuel filter and the lines. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still usually easy.
Driven a couple of miles. Now your pump has spent those miles working on thinned fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far, and the work takes in the tank, the lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit. The school run to Mellor Primary School is one matter. A run as far as Manchester, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M67, under 5 miles from Brook Bottom, where your engine has been working hard throughout.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Church Road. Permanent damage is very unusual if a vehicle is stopped soon, and the fuel drain and flush that still come first take care of it.
Brook Bottom people and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that guidance presumes.
Not so: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. At higher pressure, through finer components: that's how a newer diesel handles its fuel, so the protection matters for more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so no harm done" — the myth that catches most people than any other. The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel normally stops, because it will not run, and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump grinds. Running is not the same as fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an outdated fix for a different issue. What petrol has diluted remains thinned, and the petrol remains in your tank anyway.
Once your engine has run, part of the petrol is in the filter and the fuel lines, not that tank — and your next start pulls it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" does not stand up. Emptying petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol vehicle at all. So the error runs one way.
Habit and the vehicle getting out of step is when it happens. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and motors that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Strines. Exactly the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Passat for the first time. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, the hand simply does what it has always done.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Brook Bottom
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — yet not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- Plenty of vehicles state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check it on your first fill in any car you don't know.
- One of each in the house? Label the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since intending to remember is not enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems silly and it works.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, so tuck your phone away and keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- Add-on devices exist for vehicles without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol in the tank makes a thinner blend. What to do next does not change, though — still do not crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Brook Bottom?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Don't turn the ignition on, and do not crank it. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Shell itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it clear of the pump if you ask. What was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run: tell us those when you ring 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different fault — Brook Bottom has a page all for it.
What makes one Brook Bottom petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
Four different jobs sit behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single quote. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Next it's the ratio — how much petrol went in against how much your tank takes — and then where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely.
Before any quote, not after, come three questions: your fuel that was put in, its quantity, and whether it has run. That is why. The replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Brook Bottom and where it is
Brook Bottom is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated inland at an elevation of 186 metres, approximately 10.8 miles from Manchester. Brook Bottom is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Brook Bottom sits near other local places such as Moorend, Mellor, and Hollywood End, and is home to around 951 residents.
Across Greater Manchester and in Brook Bottom: fuel drain cover
Petrol in diesel call-outs in Brook Bottom — part of the SK postcode area — go to vans that also cover the places around it, Moorend, Mellor and Hollywood End among them. The car does not need to come to us: we drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
In Brook Bottom and still at the petrol pump?
Nothing beats it: that's where you are. Turned off it stays; then call.