Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Cinderford
Unstarted? Then less worried than you likely feel. Everyone in Cinderford starts with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is usually no: petrol resting in your tank of any diesel remains harmless till priming, cranking or driving pulls it into your fuel system. Leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The remainder of this page covers what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you a second time.
What petrol in a diesel does to the engine
Diesel does two jobs on its way through a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Designed to extremely fine gaps, the fuel injectors and your pump depend on your diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump on the mixture to wear itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you get the clattering.
The shape of the trouble is plain when you put those together. It's circulation that does the damage, not contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel problem. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the injectors downstream.
Cinderford, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to significant
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. Being on a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept in the tank alone, it's drained and purged on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. Once primed, the system has drawn petrol out of that tank up to the filter and your lines. Drain, flush, see to the filter: still usually easy.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them running on weakened fuel. Mileage is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way this work includes your tank, your lines, your filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. A school run to Forest View Primary School is one matter. Getting as far as Gloucester, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any miles on the M50, under 10 miles from Cinderford, with the motor working hard all the way.
Driven until it protested. Knocking, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is the motor signalling fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Leave it where it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on A4151. The fuel drain and flush-through still come first, and they sort it out: if a car is pulled over soon, lasting damage is very uncommon.
Stories Cinderford motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. A bigger tank of the same mixture is all it gives, since topping up removes nothing. The assumption behind the guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. A current diesel sends its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
One myth that catches drivers out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Any petrol engine fed diesel usually will not run, and so the driver stops and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually fires up, idles and drives away like nothing has happened — all while its pump is wearing. Fine and running are not the same at all.
Myth: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It was an old fix, supposed for another fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and the petrol is still inside that tank afterwards.
Myth: "Drain the tank yourself and you're sorted." Once your engine has run, some of the petrol is no longer inside the tank: it's in your filter and your lines, and it goes right back through the pump at your next start. It is also truly risky to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Why petrol in a diesel takes place so easily
It is rarely carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol car at all. So the mistake runs one way.
When habit and the vehicle stop matching, it takes place. A vehicle that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. Rushing for a train outside Lydney and filling up en route. Exactly the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver 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.
Cinderford motorists: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Check the pump's label; the colour is only a clue.
- Check your filler flap. Many motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in a car you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key achieves more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a household with one of each.
- It sounds silly and it does the trick: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make while your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol inside that tank makes a weaker blend. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Cinderford? Start here
Then, there is just a short order of things. Don't crank it, and do not switch your ignition on. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at EG on the move itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it away from the petrol pump if you ask. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a separate issue, with its own page for Cinderford, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Cinderford costs more than another
Four separate jobs lie behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single price. What moves your cost is mostly which of them you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what that tank holds, then the place the vehicle is in and whether a van can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before quoting, rather than after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Cinderford
Cinderford is a town in Gloucestershire, situated in the Forest of Dean, with a population of around 9794 people. Cinderford sits at an elevation of 205 metres, approximately 11 miles west of Gloucester, and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Cinderford is close to nearby places such as Mount Pleasant, Littledean Hill, and Double View, and is about 104 miles west of London. Cinderford remains a significant residential and commercial centre in the area.
Cinderford and Gloucestershire: where our fuel drain cover runs
Petrol in diesel call-outs around Cinderford — part of the GL postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the locations around it, Mount Pleasant, Littledean Hill and Double View included. 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 driveway.
At the pump around Cinderford, right now?
Nothing beats it: that's where you are. Keep it turned off, then ring.