How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Camberley
Unstarted? Then less worried than you probably are. "Have I ruined it?" is the first thing everyone in Camberley asks, and the honest answer is generally no, because petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it's dragged through your fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. Keep it that way: leave your motor 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 spread, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
On its way through a motor, diesel has two jobs. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. What keeps the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from wearing down against one another is your diesel passing through them — they're designed to very fine gaps.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump running on that mixture wearing itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the knocking.
Together, those make the shape of the trouble clear. Contact doesn't do the harm — circulation does. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Once the pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical fault has started: whatever is shed by a pump that's wearing travels onward to the injectors with the fuel.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our engineers see around Camberley
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. The petrol is in the tank and only that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one scenario that can only really occur on a forecourt, because anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or merely your ignition on. Petrol has come out of that tank and got to your filter and the lines, because your system has been primed. That is usually still a simple task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Those few miles driven meant the pump working on fuel thinned by petrol throughout. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the whole circuit: that is the work, and the way the vehicle was driven matters as much as the mileage. On the school run to Lorraine Infant School & Nursery, the mileage is short. A run as far as Westminster, under 50 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M3, under a mile from Camberley, where the engine has been running hard throughout.
Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and the engine is telling you. Whether it's the verge on St Georges Road, a lay-by or a side road, stop there then leave it. What goes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that sorts it out, with permanent damage very unusual when a vehicle is stopped soon.
Myths Camberley 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 will be." Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mix. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that guidance presumes.
If anything, the opposite holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A current diesel runs its fuel through finer parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up more drivers than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it normally will not run, and so the driver stops — and the damage stops with them. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile your pump grinds. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It is an old fix, meant for another fault. The petrol is still in the tank after that, and what it has diluted is not put back.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump at the next start. And, a can of petrol drained at the kerbside is truly risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two, and it slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. So the slip runs one way.
Routine and the car getting out of step is how it takes place. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Two motors on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. Rushing for a train outside the nearest station and fuelling up en route. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. The hand repeats what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Camberley drivers: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- Check the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a vehicle you do not know.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key when a house has one of each. So mark it.
- It sounds silly and it does the trick: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, so stop the moment you realise — while remembering that your next step is unchanged. It is still not to crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel around Camberley? Start here
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off as well. If you're still at the forecourt — Texaco or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll the car clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That is a separate problem — corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection — and it has its own page for Camberley.
Camberley petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four different tasks, so no single quote for this would be fair. Mostly, the cost moves with which one you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a share of what your tank holds, then the place the vehicle is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three queries: your fuel that went in, the volume, and if it has run. That is why. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Camberley, for a moment
Camberley is a town in Surrey, situated near the lakes and heathland of the surrounding countryside. Camberley sits at an elevation of 86 metres, approximately 29 miles southwest of London. Camberley is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is close to nearby places such as Crawley Hill and York Town. Camberley has a population of around 15974 residents.
Camberley and Surrey: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Camberley rests in the GU postcode area, and the vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the locations near it as well — Crawley Hill, York Town and College Town among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places we drain, and the vehicle does not need to come to us.
At the petrol pump around Camberley, right now?
In that case, you could not be in a better place. Keep it off. Phone.