East Town: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
If it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Till your ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which makes the truthful reply to that first East Town query — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. To leave the car that way, ring Petrol in Diesel then leave your motor switched off. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's travelled, and how to keep it from happening again: that's the rest of this page.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Passing through a motor, diesel does two jobs at once. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Designed to extremely fine gaps, the injectors and the pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Of these two tasks, petrol handles the first poorly and the second never. It's runnier than diesel and strips away the protection your fuel system hinges on, so a pump running on a petrol mix is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is designed to resist igniting under compression, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
Together, those leave the shape of the trouble clear. Not contact but circulation is what does the damage. Where that petrol is only inside your tank, it's a problem of fuel, nothing more. After the pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical fault has started: whatever is shed by a pump that's wearing travels onward to your injectors with the fuel.
Petrol in a diesel in East Town: how bad is it? Four situations
Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there can be. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, the petrol is still limited to the tank — since everywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The job is draining and cleaning on the spot.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Once primed, the system has drawn petrol from your tank as far as your filter and your lines. Normally little more than clearing, flushing and sorting the fuel filter, and so still simple.
Driven a couple of miles. Now your pump has spent these miles running on diluted fuel. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way this work includes the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit. A school run to Hayward's Primary School is one matter. Any miles on the M5, under 10 miles from East Town, means the motor has worked hard throughout, and a run to Exeter, under 10 miles away, makes a very different task as well.
Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. What you are hearing is the engine reporting fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Blagdon, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. A vehicle stopped quickly very seldom has long-term damage, as the fuel drain and the flush, which still come first, deal with it.
Myths East Town people hear about petrol in a diesel
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. The idea behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. At higher pressure, through more precise components: that is how a current diesel handles its fuel, and so the protection matters more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up most motorists than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it usually won't run, and so the driver stops — and the damage stops with them. While the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened. Fine and running are not the same thing.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an outdated workaround for a distinct fault. What petrol has thinned stays weakened, and that petrol stays inside the tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go straight back through the pump at your next start. Emptying petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really risky.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer 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.
Routine and the car getting out of step is how it happens. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that is new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Racing for a train outside Crediton and filling up en route. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Audi A4 in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and your hand does what it has always done.
East Town people: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- The label is what counts, and so read the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- Check your filler flap. Plenty of vehicles state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any vehicle you don't know.
- One of each in the home? Mark the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since intending to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fill a hired or new car, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- Whilst you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck your phone away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a backstop, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in your tank makes a thinner mixture. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel in East Town?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at Green Earth Biodiesel itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it away from the pump if you ask. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — the fuel, the rough amount, and if it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a different problem, with its own page for East Town, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication.
One petrol in a diesel job in East Town costs more than another. Why?
An honest single quote does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. What moves the cost is mostly which of them you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what the tank holds, then the spot the vehicle is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
That is why our engineers ask three queries before quoting instead of after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. A range turns into a straight figure once the replies are in.
About East Town itself
East Town is a suburban area located inland in Devon, approximately 7 miles from Exeter and 160 miles from London, with a mix of semi-detached housing. East Town sits at an elevation of around 53 metres, near the communities of Crediton, Fordton, and West Town. East Town has a population of around 4218 residents, making it a modestly sized suburban community. East Town is characterized by its residential layout and proximity to the nearby city of Exeter.
East Town and Devon: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Crediton, Fordton and West Town are among the locations around East Town that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across East Town's EX postcode area. The car doesn't need to move to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
In East Town and still at the petrol pump?
Then, you could not be in a better spot. Keep it off. Phone.