Crit Hall: Petrol in a Diesel Car? Here Is What Happens
Stop. Motor off. Keep the vehicle that way — no second on, no moving it anywhere. Petrol in a diesel that has not been run is usually a drain and a flush, done where your car stands, and what you do in the next few minutes decides that far more than anything else. Here's the sequence of things from here, anywhere you're around Crit Hall.
Petrol in a diesel? What to do in minute one
Work through the following first, in this order.
- The ignition off, keys out. Turned on, your ignition can prime the system — and priming is what draws petrol out of the tank into the parts it harms.
- Topping up with diesel seems like it dilutes the problem. It doesn't: nothing gets out, and that tank simply holds more of the same.
- Close to moving traffic? Then your hazards go on before everything else, so the car is simple to see.
- However short the distance, starting it to shift it is the mistake. At a forecourt, push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump by hand instead, then ask the attendants to lend a hand.
- Keep the receipt: the grade and roughly how much are written on it, and they're what our engineers ask about first.
Still on the move when you noticed? Come off the M20 at the next junction if that is where you are, under 15 miles from Crit Hall, and stop somewhere sensible and not pushing on to the services. Then start at step one.
Has it run yet? The fork in every Crit Hall fuel drain
What comes after this turns on one answer, and just one.
Not run, not even briefly:
- All the petrol sits in your tank, and just there.
- The job is a simple drain and a flush, usually done where the car stands.
- Being here is the best case — which is the entire point of step one.
Run at all, even for a second:
- Petrol has been pulled out of that tank, through the filter then into the fuel lines.
- Run it farther and that petrol gets to the injectors, having gone through the fuel pump first.
- The job grows with the miles — lines rinsed, filter sorted, occasionally more.
The reason the line falls there: diesel protects the high-pressure pump and the injectors as it flows through them, and petrol does not. In the tank, left alone, petrol harms nothing. Pump the petrol, though, and it grinds down the very parts doing the moving.
What to have prepared when you call about petrol in a diesel from Crit Hall
A little preparation is the difference between a technician that finds you and a van that circles.
- The best place to start is a postcode — one starting TN17 4 — for where you are.
- Wherever you have parked, the road's name helps — whether that's Cranbrook Road or somewhere else — and so does the name of a car park.
- Or the nearest landmark. A car park is easier to find by what it serves, such as the one at The Co-operative Food.
- The car. Make, model, plus that it is a diesel.
- What went in. Petrol, or AdBlue. AdBlue is a separate job with its own page for Crit Hall, and so say which.
- How long the nozzle was in, or the litres from the receipt — either tells us how much.
- The distance it covered, and how hard, if it has run at all.
- Settle who owns the vehicle before we arrive: some hire and company agreements want the owner to authorise the work, and that is faster beforehand.
Then call 0333 366 0103. If it can wait — your car is at home and going nowhere — does the trick as well.
The wait for a Crit Hall fuel drain, and what to do in it
The wait is where well-intended help does the damage. Hold to these.
- Where the vehicle has stopped decides where you wait. Exposed: away from it, away from the traffic. Safe: with it. Either way, safety before the vehicle.
- Not to roll it a couple of yards, not to check it is all right, not as a passer-by's favour: nobody starts it.
- Anything from the boot, oil made for two-strokes or injector cleaner: no additive lifts the petrol.
- Siphoning petrol into a can at the roadside is hazardous — and it also leaves whatever fuel has already gone beyond your tank. Do not drain the car yourself.
- Leave the ignition off — the windows and the radio too.
The fuel drain, step by step, after the van arrives
- Three questions. What went in, how much, and if it has run. Those answers decide the job, which is why our quote comes after them but not before.
- Out of your tank comes the tainted blend: that tank is drained.
- Petrol that has shifted beyond the tank sits in the fuel lines if it ran, and the fuel lines are cleaned to clear it.
- Then your filter: swapped where there is a usable one, cleared where there is not.
- Bleeding your system comes once fresh diesel is in.
- The first start on fresh diesel. When priming is complete, your engine is fired up and we confirm that it runs smoothly.
Only when it's running on new diesel do we go. When it has been spotted early, lasting damage is very rare, and the vehicle goes back to normal driving right away.
Back on the road around Crit Hall after the fuel drain
- Drive normally. There is nothing unusual to do after it has been started on clean fuel.
- Give the first miles your attention. Smoke showing, a warning light coming on, your idle going lumpy or the throttle stumbling: pull over and ring us back.
- An insurer, a fleet manager or a hire firm may ask what was done, so hold on to your paperwork.
- Next time, trust the pump's label instead of the colour of its handle.
About Crit Hall
Crit Hall is a small locality in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 99 metres, and is located near the villages of Swattenden and Four Wents. Crit Hall lies within the wider countryside of the Weald of Kent, close to the North Downs, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Crit Hall is also near to Tubslake and is approximately 27 miles from Canterbury, with London being around 42 miles away.
Fuel drains across Crit Hall and nearby
Swattenden, Four Wents and Tubslake are served by the same teams that take petrol in diesel call-outs in Crit Hall — and so is most of Kent beyond. Guessing doesn't help close to a boundary or somewhere hard to explain; a quick ring and a query will.
Leave it off and ring: petrol in a diesel around Kent
Keys out, engine off, the till receipt in your pocket: that's step one done. The remainder is for Petrol in Diesel, wherever the vehicle is — forecourt, roadside or drive.