East Lydford: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Not started? Then less anxious than you likely are. Everyone around East Lydford begins with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is usually no: petrol left in your tank of any diesel remains harmless until priming, cranking or driving draws it into the system. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with the engine left off, so it remains that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the signs of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you never do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It combusts, and before it ignites it protects. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing down against one another is your diesel flowing through them — they are made to extremely fine tolerances.
Petrol does the first job poorly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump running on the blend to wear itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the rattling.
Put those together and the shape of the trouble is clear. It's circulation that does the damage, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel issue. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
East Lydford, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to serious
Filled up, and not started: no case is better. Only your tank has petrol in it, and so the job is draining your tank and flushing the fuel system where the car stands. This scenario can only truly happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. Once primed, your system has drawn petrol from that tank up to the filter and your lines. That is normally still an easy job — a drain, a flush, and the filter dealt with.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them working on weakened fuel. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the whole system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. Short trips, like the school run to Lovington Church of England Primary School, are one thing. A run as far as Wells, under 10 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M5, under 25 miles from East Lydford, where the motor has been running hard throughout.
Driven until it protested. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That is your motor telling you its fuel has stopped behaving like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Church Lane, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. A car pulled over quickly very rarely has long-term damage, because the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, sort it out.
What East Lydford people get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the opposite. Finer components and higher pressure are the way a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the lubrication count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so no harm done" — the myth that catches most drivers than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it normally won't run, so the driver stops — and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally starts, ticks over and pulls away like nothing has happened — all the while its pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an old workaround for a distinct fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still in your tank afterwards.
Once the engine has run, part of the petrol sits in your filter and the lines, not the tank — and the next start sends it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't stand up. Also, a can of petrol filled at the roadside is truly hazardous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. The petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the error runs one way.
The moment habit stops matching the car is the moment it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Castle Cary. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it occurs. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, your hand just does what it always has.
Next time you fill up around East Lydford: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — yet not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in a strange motor is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, plenty of motors state which fuel they take.
- 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 works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so put the phone away then keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in the tank makes a thinner mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start the car.
Put petrol in a diesel around East Lydford already?
Then, there is only a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off as well. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at Shell itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it clear of the pump if you ask. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, about how much, and if it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a separate problem, with its own page for East Lydford, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel task around East Lydford costs more than another. Why?
There's no fair single quote for this, because the four scenarios above are four different tasks. Which of them you are in is mostly what moves the cost. The share matters next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the position of your car and whether reaching it is safe for a van.
Three queries come first, before quoting, instead of after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure when the replies are in.
About East Lydford, for a moment
East Lydford is a small village in Somerset, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 24 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. East Lydford lies near the city of Wells, approximately 9 miles away, and is also close to nearby places such as West Lydford and Lydford-on-Fosse. East Lydford has a population of around 531 residents and is located in the South West region of England, about 111 miles from London. East Lydford is part of a wider rural area with a mix of agricultural land and small settlements.
Across Somerset and in East Lydford: fuel drain cover
Our vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs around East Lydford, in the TA postcode area, also work the spots around it, West Lydford, Lydford Fair Place and Lydford-on-Fosse included. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all locations our technicians work, and your car does not need to move to us.
In East Lydford and still at the petrol pump?
Then, you couldn't be in a better place. Ring, and leave it turned off.