Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Dartmouth
Probably less than you are now — as long as nobody has started the vehicle. "Have I ruined it?" is the first question everyone around Dartmouth asks, and the truthful answer is usually no, because petrol left in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it is drawn through your fuel system — by ignition priming, by the starter, or by being driven. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with your motor kept off, so it remains that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it has travelled, and how to keep it from happening again: that's the remainder of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two things at once. It ignites, and before it ignites it protects. Very fine gaps are built into the injectors and your high-pressure pump, and just your diesel running through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that's where the clattering starts.
The shape of the problem is plain once you put those together. It is movement that causes the harm, not contact. Where the petrol is only in the tank, it's a problem of fuel, nothing more. After the pump has been labouring on that petrol, a mechanical issue has begun: whatever is shed by a pump that is wearing is carried downstream to the fuel injectors with your fuel.
Petrol in a diesel around Dartmouth: how bad is it? Four cases
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. Just your tank has petrol in it, so the task is emptying that tank and rinsing the system where your car stands. This situation can only really take place on a forecourt: anywhere else, your car got there by being driven.
Ignition on, or started for a second. With the fuel system primed, the fuel lines and filter now contain petrol that came from your tank. Still generally easy: drain, flush, and the fuel filter sorted.
Some miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them labouring on thinned fuel. Mileage is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way the work runs to that tank, the lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit. Short trips, like the school run to St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Primary School, Dartmouth, are one thing. Very different once more: a run to Plymouth, under 25 miles away, or some distance on the M5, under 25 miles from Dartmouth, where the motor kept labouring hard.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. That's the engine telling you its fuel no longer is behaving like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Victoria Road. The drain and flush still come first, and they take care of it: if a vehicle is pulled over soon, long-term damage is very unusual.
Dartmouth motorists and the petrol in a diesel stories they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank simply carries more of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system doesn't tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through finer components: that's how a modern diesel moves its fuel, so the lubrication matters more, not less.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the harm stops there. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually does; meanwhile your pump wears. Running isn't the same as fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old fix, meant for another fault. None of what petrol weakened gets put back by it — and later, the tank still contains that petrol.
Once the motor has run, part of that petrol is in the filter and your lines, not that tank — and the next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. It's also really dangerous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
It's seldom carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. A diesel nozzle mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle, but the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake easy, and only in one direction.
Habit and your car falling out of step is how it takes place. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Filling up in a rush en route to Paignton, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Tiguan for the first time. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Dartmouth
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Many cars state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check it on the first fill in any motor you do not know.
- 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 meaning to remember.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- 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 built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the rest. Treat it as a safety net, then keep reading the pump.
- Less petrol means a weaker mix, and so stop the moment you realise — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Dartmouth already?
Then, there is only a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition off too. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Dart Fuel Barge itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it clear of the pump if you ask. What got in, about how much, and if it has run: tell us that when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Dartmouth page.
What makes one Dartmouth petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
Four different tasks lie behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single quote. Mostly, your cost shifts with which situation you're in. Where the vehicle is counts too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the proportion of petrol to what that tank holds.
Three questions come first, before any quote, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. Those answers change a range into a straight figure.
About Dartmouth and where it is
Dartmouth is a coastal town in Devon, situated on the western bank of the River Dart estuary. Dartmouth has a long history of maritime trade and is known for its well-preserved Georgian architecture and picturesque riverfront. Dartmouth sits at a low elevation of around 7 metres above sea level, close to the nearby villages of Kingswear and Warfleet. Dartmouth is a popular destination for tourists and sailors, with a population of approximately 5384 people living in predominantly terraced housing.
Across Devon and around Dartmouth: fuel drain cover
Kingswear, Warfleet and Stoke Fleming are among the spots near Dartmouth that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Dartmouth's TQ postcode area. Our engineers drain wherever your vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
At the petrol pump in Dartmouth, right now?
Then you're in the best spot there is. Leave the vehicle turned off, then ring.