Ellon: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Likely less than you are now — provided nobody has started it. "Have I ruined it?" is the first thing anyone in Ellon asks, and the honest answer is generally no, since petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it is dragged through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. Leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has got, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
On its way through an engine, diesel does two tasks. It ignites, and before it ignites it lubricates. Very fine gaps are built into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure pump, and only the diesel running through keeps those surfaces from grinding together.
The second task petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. The rattling comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the lubrication your system hinges on, and any pump working on such a mixture is wearing itself.
Together, those make the shape of the problem clear. The damage is done by circulation, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors further on.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our engineers see in Ellon
Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there can be. The petrol is in the tank and just your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one situation that can only truly take place at a forecourt, since anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
The ignition turned on, or a short start. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter already contain petrol that has come from your tank. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still usually simple.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them running on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the entire circuit: that's the work, and the way the car was driven counts as much as the distance. Driving the children to the local primary school is one sort of trip. Very different once more: a trip to Aberdeen, under 15 miles away, or some mileage on the M90, over 50 miles from Ellon, where the motor kept running hard.
Driven until it complained. Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Pull up where you are — on the verge on A920, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. A vehicle pulled over quickly very rarely has lasting damage, because the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, deal with it.
Ellon drivers and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. A bigger tank of the same mix is all you get, since topping up removes nothing. 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 reverse. A modern diesel sends its fuel through finer components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
One myth that catches drivers out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. The driver of a petrol motor fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the damage stops there. Whilst your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old workaround, meant for another issue. What petrol has thinned remains diluted, and the petrol stays inside the tank regardless.
Once the engine has been run, part of the petrol is in the filter and the fuel lines, not the tank — and the next start sends it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" does not hold. Draining petrol into a can at the kerbside is also really hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
No one does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the error runs one way.
When routine and the vehicle stop matching, it happens. Any vehicle that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. A rushed fill on the way to Dyce with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Tiguan, its first fuelling, and a driver accustomed to petrol: precisely when it takes place. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and the hand repeats what it has always done.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Ellon
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — yet not on each forecourt. Trust the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Plenty of cars state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check it on the first fill in a vehicle you don't know.
- Mark your key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make while your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Spotting it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A weaker mix results from less petrol inside that tank, yet the next step stays the same: don't crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Ellon? Start here
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. If you are still on the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the pump. What went in, roughly how much, and if it has run: tell us those when you call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a separate fault — Ellon has a page all for it.
One petrol in a diesel job around Ellon costs more than another. Why?
A fair single price does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate tasks. Chiefly, your cost moves with which situation you are in. The share counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the location of the car and whether getting to it is safe for a van.
Before any quote, not after, come three questions: the fuel that was put in, its quantity, and if it's run. That is why. Given those replies, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Ellon
Ellon is a town situated on the River Ythan in Aberdeenshire, with a population of around 8853 people. Ellon has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant, and the town is located near several smaller communities, including Craighall and Meiklemill. Ellon sits at an elevation of 13 metres, close to the coast and approximately 14.8 miles north of Aberdeen. Ellon is also relatively distant from major English cities, being around 412 miles from London.
Fuel drain cover around Ellon and across Aberdeenshire
Ellon waits in the AB postcode area, and the vans that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the spots around it as well — Craighall, Meiklemill and Esslemont among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all spots our technicians drain, and your car does not need to move to us.
At the petrol pump in Ellon, right now?
Then you're in the best place there is. Ring, and leave it turned off.