How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Cottam
Probably less than you are now — as long as nobody has started the car. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor until something pulls it through the fuel system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or the drive itself. So the honest answer to the first query anyone around Cottam asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to call, with the motor kept off, and so it stays that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Passing through an engine, diesel does two jobs at once. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing against one another is your diesel passing through them — they are built to very fine clearances.
The second job petrol does not do at all, and the first it does badly. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and strips out the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that's where the rattling starts.
The shape of the trouble is plain once you put those together. It is movement that does the damage, not contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four situations our technicians see around Cottam: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, and never started: no case is better. At a forecourt, and really only there, that petrol is still confined to the tank — since anywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The job is emptying and purging on the spot.
Your ignition switched on, or a short start. Petrol has left the tank and reached the fuel filter and the lines, because the fuel system has been bled. That is generally still an easy task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Driven a few 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 this work takes in that tank, your lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Driving the children to Garton-on-the-Wolds Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School is one kind of trip. Any miles on the Petuaria Way, under 25 miles from Cottam, means the motor working hard throughout, and a run to Kingston upon Hull, under 25 miles away, makes a very different job as well.
Driven until it complained. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is your motor signalling fuel that no longer acts like diesel. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Cottam Lane, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle there. A vehicle stopped early very seldom has lasting damage, since the drain and the flush, which still come first, take care of it.
Cottam motorists and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." A bigger tank of the same mix is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. At higher pressure, through finer components: that is how a current diesel handles its fuel, so the lubrication counts for more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that fools motorists. Diesel in a petrol motor usually means a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally starts, idles and pulls away like nothing happened — all the while its pump is wearing. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a different fault. What petrol has thinned remains weakened, and the petrol stays inside your tank regardless.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you're sorted." Once your engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer inside that tank: it's in the filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through your pump at your next start. Also, a can of petrol drained by the roadside is genuinely hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two, and it slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol car at all. So the mistake runs one way.
Routine and your car getting out of step is how it happens. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. Filling up in a hurry en route to Driffield, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a driver used to petrol: precisely when it takes place. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, the hand simply does what it always has.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up around Cottam
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on each forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour.
- In a vehicle you do not know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before the first fill: many vehicles print the fuel type there.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on the diesel's key when a house has one of each. So label it.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems silly. It works.
- Whilst you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck your phone away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for motors without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a thinner blend, and so stop the moment you notice — while remembering that the next step is unchanged. It is still not to start the vehicle.
Cottam: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there's only a short order of things. Do not switch your ignition on, and don't start it. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at G Boyes itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it clear of the pump if you ask. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the approximate quantity, and if it's run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it's a different fault, with its own page for Cottam, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel task around Cottam costs more than another. Why?
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single quote for this would be fair. The situation itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Next it is the ratio — how much petrol was put in against how much that tank takes — and after that where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely.
What got in, how much, and whether it's run — three queries our technicians ask before pricing, not after, for exactly that reason. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Cottam
Cottam is a small locality in the East Riding of Yorkshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 144 metres. Cottam lies approximately 23 miles west of Kingston upon Hull and is surrounded by nearby places such as Cottam Warren, Langtoft, and Cowlam. Cottam is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and a relatively small population of around 512 residents.
Fuel drain cover in Cottam and across East Riding of Yorkshire
Cottam waits in the YO postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots around it as well — Cottam Warren, Langtoft and Cowlam among them. No need to move the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all locations where we work.
Cottam: still at the petrol pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better spot. Keep the vehicle switched off, then ring.