Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Camp Town
Provided it has not been started, worry far less than you probably are. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor till something draws it through the system — the ignition priming the pump, the starter, or driving itself. So the fair answer to the first query everyone in Camp Town asks, "have I ruined it?", is normally no. Leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it like that. The rest of this page covers what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge 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
Passing through a motor, diesel does two jobs at once. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Built to very fine clearances, the fuel injectors and the pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out 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 is where the rattling starts.
Taken together, they make clear what shape the trouble has. The harm is done by movement, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by the fuel, into the fuel injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical fault begins.
Four scenarios our technicians see in Camp Town: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled but not once started — the best it gets. Being at a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With that petrol held in the tank alone, it's emptied and flushed on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
A brief spell of running, or merely the ignition on. With the system primed, your lines and filter already hold petrol that came from the tank. Still normally easy: drain, flush, and your filter sorted.
Your pump now worked a few miles on weakened fuel — that's what driving the vehicle meant. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the entire system: that's the work, and the way your car was driven counts as much as the mileage. Short trips, like the school run to Alwoodley Primary School, are one thing. A run as far as Leeds, under 5 miles away, is a very different task. So is any mileage on the A58(M), under 5 miles from Camp Town, where the motor has been running hard throughout.
Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and your motor is saying so. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Birkdale Drive, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the car where it is. A vehicle stopped quickly very seldom has permanent damage, because the drain and the flush, which still come first, sort it out.
Camp Town drivers and the petrol in a diesel stories they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank simply carries more of the same blend. The idea behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. Smaller parts and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally will not run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened, while your pump grinds. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a different problem. What petrol has weakened remains thinned, and that petrol remains inside the tank anyway.
Once the engine has been run, part of the petrol sits in your filter and the fuel lines, not the tank — and the next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" does not hold. Draining petrol into a can by the roadside is also really hazardous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's rarely carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and only in one direction.
It takes place when routine and the vehicle stop matching. A car that is new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A hurried fill on the way to Headingley with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Tiguan, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: precisely when it occurs. The hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up in Camp Town
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is only a hint.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many motors state the fuel they take.
- Label your key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems silly. It works.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so put the phone away and keep your mind on the pump.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a backstop, and keep checking the pump.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop at once. A thinner mixture results from less petrol in that tank, yet the next step stays the same: do not crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Camp Town?
The order of things is short, then. Do not turn your ignition on, and don't fire it up. The staff at the forecourt — whether at BP itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it clear of the petrol pump if you ask. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Camp Town page.
What makes one Camp Town petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
There is no honest single quote for this, since the four situations above are four separate jobs. Mostly, the cost shifts with which situation you are in. Next it's the proportion — how much petrol went in against how much your tank takes — and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
That is why our technicians ask three queries before pricing rather than after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. Given the replies, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Camp Town and its setting
Camp Town is a suburban area located in West Yorkshire, situated approximately 3.5 miles from Leeds and 172.6 miles from London. Camp Town sits at an elevation of 144 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Black Moor, Moor Allerton, and Alwoodley. Camp Town has a population of around 5893 people and predominantly features semi-detached housing. Camp Town is characterized by its inland setting, with the local landscape shaping the community's development.
Fuel drain cover across West Yorkshire, Camp Town included
Camp Town rests in the LS postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the places near it as well — Black Moor, Moor Allerton and Alwoodley among them. The vehicle does not need to come to us: we drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
In Camp Town and still at the pump?
The best spot there is, then — that's where you are. Call, and leave it switched off.