Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Cottingley
Unstarted? Then less anxious than you probably feel. "Have I ruined it?" is the first thing everyone around Cottingley asks, and the honest answer is normally no, since petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it is drawn through your fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. To leave the car that way, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave the engine switched off. The remainder of this page explains what petrol really 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 motor
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Very fine gaps are built into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and just the diesel flowing through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
Petrol does the first job badly and the second not at all. The knocking comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips away the lubrication the system hinges on, and any pump running on that blend is wearing itself.
The shape of the issue is clear when you put those together. It is movement that does the damage, not contact. Where the petrol is only in that tank, it is a problem of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors further on.
Petrol in a diesel in Cottingley: how serious is it? Four situations
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. Being at a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol held inside the tank alone, it's drained and flushed on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. With your system primed, your lines and filter already hold petrol that came from the tank. That's usually still a simple task — a drain, a flush, and your filter dealt with.
The pump now worked a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that's what driving the car does. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the whole system: that's the work, and the way the vehicle was driven matters as much as the mileage. A school run to Cottingley Village Primary School is one matter. A run as far as Bradford, under 5 miles away, is a very different job. So is any distance on the M606, under 10 miles from Cottingley, where your engine has been labouring hard throughout.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. The engine is telling you the fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Grange Park Drive, a lay-by or a side road, stop there and leave it. Lasting damage is very rare if a car is stopped soon, and the drain and flush that still go first deal with it.
Petrol in a diesel stories Cottingley motorists hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a fuller tank, still the same mixture. The idea behind the advice — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
If anything, the reverse is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." More precise parts and higher pressure are the way a newer 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. The driver of a petrol engine fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the harm stops there. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally starts, ticks over and drives away like nothing has happened — all while its pump wears. Running is not the same as fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a distinct fault. The petrol is still in that tank afterwards, and what it has weakened isn't put back.
Once the motor has been run, part of the petrol is in the fuel filter and the lines, not the tank — and the next start sends it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't stand up. Emptying petrol into a can by the kerbside is also genuinely risky.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
Carelessness is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the error runs one way.
It occurs when routine and the car stop matching. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Bingley. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Megane after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it takes place. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and the hand repeats what it has always done.
Next time you fill up in Cottingley: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state which fuel to use.
- Label the key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It seems silly and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- 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 safety net, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in the tank makes a thinner mixture. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start the car.
Cottingley: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is brief. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off as well. If you are still on the forecourt — Texaco or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what went in, about how much, and if it's been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That's a separate problem — corrosion and deposits and not lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Cottingley.
Cottingley petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four different tasks, so no single quote for this would be fair. Chiefly, your cost shifts with which situation you're in. The proportion counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, followed by the position of the car and whether reaching it is safe for a van.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure when those replies are in.
About Cottingley, for a moment
Cottingley is a suburban area in West Yorkshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 82 metres, with Cottingley being close to the nearby city of Bradford. Cottingley has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. Cottingley is located near several notable places, including Cottingley Bar, Old Hills, and Noon Nick, and is approximately 175.9 miles from London.
Across West Yorkshire and around Cottingley: fuel drain cover
Cottingley rests in the BD postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the places near it as well — Cottingley Bar, Old Hills and Noon Nick among them. The car does not need to move to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
At the petrol pump around Cottingley, still?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Ring, and keep it turned off.