Egham Hythe: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Not started? Then less anxious than you likely feel. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor until something pulls it through your fuel system — your ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the honest answer to the first query anyone around Egham Hythe asks, "have I ruined it?", is usually no. To keep the vehicle like that, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the signs of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you never do it again.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Diesel has two tasks on its way through a motor. Before it combusts, it lubricates — then it burns. Very fine gaps are built into your injectors and your high-pressure pump, and just your diesel flowing through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Of these two jobs, petrol manages the first poorly and the second not at all. It is runnier than diesel and takes away the protection your fuel system hinges on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is designed to resist igniting under compression, which is the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the knocking comes from.
Seen together, they make clear what shape the issue has. The damage is done by circulation, not by contact. Where that petrol is only in the tank, it is a fault of fuel, nothing more. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors beyond it.
Four situations our engineers see in Egham Hythe: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled up, not once 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 your tank alone, it's cleared and flushed on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. Your system has been bled, so petrol has left that tank and got to your filter and the fuel lines. That's normally still a straightforward job — a drain, a flush, and your filter dealt with.
The pump has worked a few miles on diluted fuel — that is what driving it does. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, your filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. Short trips, like the school run to Hythe Primary School, are one thing. Any distance on the M25, under a mile from Egham Hythe, means your engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Westminster, under 25 miles away, makes a very different job too.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, rattling, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. That is the motor telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Thorpe Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. Long-term damage is very rare if a vehicle is pulled over soon, and the fuel drain and flush that still go first sort it out.
Stories Egham Hythe 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 will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — the tank simply holds more of the same blend. That advice presumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. At higher pressure, through more precise parts: that's how a modern diesel handles its fuel, so the protection counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that fools drivers. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it normally won't run, so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened — all the while its pump wears. Running is not the same as fine.
An outdated workaround for a distinct issue lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It doesn't put back what petrol has weakened, and that petrol is still inside the tank later.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." Once the engine has run, some of that petrol is no longer in your tank: it's in the fuel filter and the lines, and it goes right back through the pump on your next start. On top of that, petrol drained into a can by the road is truly dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs at all
Nobody does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle, but the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake straightforward, and only in that direction.
The moment routine stops matching the car is the moment it occurs. A vehicle that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A train to catch, and a hurried fill en route to Egham. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Megane after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it takes place. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and your hand does what it has always done.
Next time you fill up around Egham Hythe: preventing petrol in a diesel
- The label is what counts, so read the petrol pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- Inspect the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any motor you do not know.
- One of each in the house? Label the key to the diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — because meaning to remember isn't enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the pump. It seems silly and it does the trick.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the rest. Treat it as a backstop, then keep checking the pump.
- Noticing it halfway? Stop at once. A thinner mixture follows from less petrol inside that tank, but the next stage remains the same: do not crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel around Egham Hythe already?
The order of things is short, then. Do not turn the ignition on, and do not crank it. If you are still on the forecourt — Sainsbury's or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. What got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a different fault, with its own page for Egham Hythe, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication.
What makes one Egham Hythe petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
Four different jobs sit behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single price. Mostly, your cost shifts with which situation you are in. Two things follow that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what that tank takes, then the place the car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
That is why we ask three questions before quoting instead of after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Egham Hythe
Egham Hythe is a suburban area in Surrey, situated on the riverside near the town of Staines-upon-Thames. Egham Hythe has a relatively low elevation of 14 metres and is located approximately 17.9 miles from London. Egham Hythe is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is close to nearby places such as Thorpe Lea and Church Lammas.
Egham Hythe and Surrey: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Staines-upon-Thames, Thorpe Lea and Church Lammas are among the spots near Egham Hythe that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Egham Hythe's TW postcode area. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places we drain, and your vehicle doesn't need to come to us.
Still at the pump around Egham Hythe?
The best position there is, then — that's where you are. Keep the vehicle turned off, and ring.