How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Bruntsfield
Likely less than you are now — provided nobody has started it. Until your ignition primes the pump, your starter turns, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does no harm. Which makes the honest reply to that first Bruntsfield question — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. Leave your motor off then call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it has gone, and how to stop it from happening again: that is the rest of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to the engine
On its way through a motor, diesel does two jobs. It protects first, and after that does it burn. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors from wearing down against one another is your diesel flowing through them — they are made to extremely fine gaps.
Of these two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on that mixture wearing itself. It's equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the knocking.
The shape of the issue is plain when you put those together. Contact doesn't do the damage — movement does. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. The start of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Petrol in a diesel in Bruntsfield: how bad is it? Four situations
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there is. On a forecourt, and really only there, that petrol is still limited to your tank — since anywhere else the car was driven to reach it. The task is emptying and purging on the spot.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. Petrol has left that tank and got to your filter and the lines, because your system has been bled. That's generally still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
A couple of miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them working on diluted fuel. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way the work includes your tank, your lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. The school run to the local primary school is one matter. Getting as far as Edinburgh, under 3 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any miles on the M8, under 5 miles from Bruntsfield, with your engine running hard the whole time.
Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. That is the motor telling you its fuel has stopped behaving like diesel. Stop where you are — on the verge on Greenhill Place, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. A vehicle pulled over early very rarely has lasting damage, since the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, sort it out.
Bruntsfield drivers and that petrol in a diesel stories they hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. Nothing comes out when you top up — your tank just carries more of the same blend. A diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage in the way that guidance presumes.
Not so: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. Smaller components and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the lubrication count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that fools drivers. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally will not run, and so the driver stops — and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally fires up, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened — all the while its pump wears. Fine and running are not the same thing.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a different problem. The petrol is still inside your tank after that, and whatever it has diluted isn't put back.
Once the engine has run, part of that petrol sits in the filter and the fuel lines, not the tank — and your next start sends it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't stand up. It is also truly risky to drain petrol into a can at the roadside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. One way only, because of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally will not fit a petrol vehicle. That is how the forecourt makes it easy.
It occurs when habit and the car stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is brand new. Two cars on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. Racing for a train at Haymarket and filling up en route. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Renault Clio in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Bruntsfield
- The label is what counts, and so check the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- Inspect the filler flap. Many motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any motor you do not know.
- Mark your key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you lift the nozzle — each time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It seems silly. It works.
- Tuck the 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 come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the rest. Count it as a backstop, and keep checking the pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, and so stop the moment you notice — while remembering that the next stage is unchanged. It is still not to fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Bruntsfield?
Then, there's only a short order of things. Do not start the car, and do not turn your ignition on. If you are still on the forecourt — JET or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the approximate volume, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Bruntsfield page.
Bruntsfield petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four different jobs, so no single quote for this would be fair. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts your cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a proportion of what that tank holds, then the place the car is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
Three questions come first, before any quote, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Their answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Bruntsfield
Bruntsfield is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 1.5 miles south of Edinburgh's city centre. Bruntsfield sits near the coast, with its elevation at around 102 metres, and is characterised by predominantly flat-type housing. Bruntsfield is close to other nearby places such as Churchhill, The Grange, and Marchmont, and is home to a population of around 12255 people.
Bruntsfield and City of Edinburgh: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Our teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Bruntsfield, in the EH postcode area, equally work the spots near it, Churchhill, The Grange and Marchmont among them. The car doesn't need to move to us: we drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
At the petrol pump in Bruntsfield, still?
Then you are in the best spot there can be. Call, and leave it turned off.