Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Broughton
Probably less than you are now — as long as nobody has started the vehicle. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor till something draws it through the fuel system — the ignition priming the pump, your starter, or the drive itself. So the fair answer to the first question anyone in Broughton asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. Keep it that way: leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel. Below, this page sets out what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it may have got, and how to stop it happening to you a second time.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two jobs at once. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors from wearing against one another is your diesel passing through them — they're built to very fine gaps.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump on the blend wearing itself. It is equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the knocking.
Combined, those leave the shape of the issue clear. Contact doesn't do the damage — circulation does. Where that petrol is only in that tank, it is an issue of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four situations our technicians see around Broughton: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Filled but not once started — the best it gets. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, that petrol is still limited to your tank — because anywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The job is draining and rinsing on the spot.
Ignition on, or started for a second. With your system primed, your lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from your tank. Still usually easy: drain, flush, and your filter dealt with.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent these miles running on thinned fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far, and the work takes in that tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit. On the school run to Dodleston CofE Primary School, the distance is short. Very different a second time: a trip to Chester, under 5 miles away, or some mileage on the M56, under 10 miles from Broughton, where your engine never stopped running hard.
Driven till it protested. Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is your motor signalling fuel that no longer acts like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Simpsons Way, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the car where it is. Long-term damage is very rare if a vehicle is stopped quickly, and the fuel drain and flush that still come first sort it out.
What Broughton drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Nothing is removed when you top up — that tank simply holds more of the same blend. A diesel fuel system doesn't tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A current diesel runs its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection count more, not less.
One myth that catches people off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Any petrol engine fed diesel usually will not run, and so the motorist stops and the harm 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. Running doesn't mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct fault. It does not put back what petrol has weakened, and that petrol is still in the tank later.
Once the engine has run, part of the petrol is in the filter and the lines, not that tank — and the next start sends it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" does not hold. Draining petrol into a can at the roadside is also genuinely risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's rarely carelessness. The petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the error runs one way.
Habit and the vehicle getting out of step is when it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is brand new. Two motors on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Hawarden. Precisely the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Clio for the first time. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Broughton motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Check the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any motor you don't know.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key if a house has one of each. So mark it.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fuel a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for motors without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop there and then. A weaker mix results from less petrol inside your tank, yet the next stage remains the same: don't start the car.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Broughton?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. If you are still at the forecourt — Tesco or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you roll it clear of the pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and whether it has run.
If it was AdBlue rather than petrol, say so. That is a separate problem — corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection — and it has its own page for Broughton.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Broughton costs more than another
The four situations above are four different jobs, so no single price for this would be fair. Mostly, your cost shifts with which one you're in. Next it is the proportion — how much petrol was put in against how much the tank takes — and after that where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
That's why we ask three questions before quoting instead of after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Given the replies, there is a straight figure rather than a range.
About Broughton itself
Broughton is a village in Flintshire, situated inland near the England-Wales border, approximately 4.5 miles from Chester. Broughton has a relatively low elevation of around 25 metres and is surrounded by nearby places such as Lower Kinnerton and Bretton. Broughton is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which reflects its development as a residential community. Broughton is located some 166 miles northwest of London, but its proximity to Chester has a more significant influence on its daily life.
Fuel drain cover around Broughton and across Flintshire
Our vans answering petrol in diesel jobs around Broughton, in the CH postcode area, also work the spots around it, Lower Kinnerton, Bretton and Old Warren among them. The vehicle doesn't need to move to us: our technicians drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
In Broughton and still at the pump?
Then you're in the best place there can be. Ring, and keep it switched off.