How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Ewood
Far less than you probably are, if it hasn't been started. Until the ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does nothing. Which means the honest reply to the first Ewood question — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Keep it like that: leave the motor off and ring Petrol in Diesel. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's gone, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that's the rest of this page.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel does
On its way through a motor, diesel has two jobs. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors are made to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from grinding against each other.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump on that mixture wearing itself. It is equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the clattering.
The shape of the trouble is plain once you put those together. The harm is done by circulation, not by contact. Petrol in the tank is a fuel problem. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to your injectors downstream.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our technicians see in Ewood
Filled up, never started. The best case there is. Only the tank has petrol in it, and so the job is emptying your tank and purging your system where your car stands. This situation can only really occur on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Petrol has come out of your tank and reached the filter and the fuel lines, since your system has been bled. Still normally straightforward: drain, flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Those few miles on the road were the pump running on fuel weakened by petrol throughout. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way this work runs to that tank, the lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the whole circuit. Driving the kids to Blackburn the Redeemer CofE Primary is one kind of trip. A run as far as Preston, under 10 miles away, is a very different job. So is any distance on the M65, under a mile from Ewood, where the engine has been running hard the whole time.
Driven on until it protested — clattering, smoke, a ragged idle, a soft throttle. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and your engine is saying so. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Branch Road, a lay-by, a side street — then leave it there. The drain and flush still go first, and they sort it out: if a vehicle is stopped quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
Petrol in a diesel stories Ewood drivers hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mix. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that guidance presumes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the reverse. Protection matters more on current diesels, not less, because their fuel passes through finer components at higher pressure.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor generally leaves a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile your pump wears. Running does not mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It is an old workaround for a different problem. What petrol has diluted stays weakened, and the petrol remains in your tank anyway.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." After the motor has run, some of the petrol is no longer in the tank: it's in the filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through your pump on your next start. Draining petrol into a can by the roadside is also really dangerous.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. A diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol motor, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and just in one direction.
Habit and the car getting out of step is when it happens. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two vehicles on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Fuelling up in a hurry on the way to Mill Hill (Lancs), with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Passat after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it occurs. With rain, a call arriving, or a car full of children to deal with, your hand simply does what it has always done.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up around Ewood
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- The first fill in a strange motor is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, plenty of cars state which fuel they take.
- One of each in the house? Mark your key to your diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — because intending to remember isn't enough.
- It sounds silly and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Stop as soon as you notice. Less petrol in that tank means a thinner blend. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Ewood already?
Then, there's just a short order of things. Don't turn the ignition on, and do not crank it. Yet at the forecourt, at the nearest petrol station or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the trouble with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Ewood page.
What makes one Ewood petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
Four different jobs lie behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single quote. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts the cost. The ratio counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of the vehicle and whether reaching it is safe for our van.
What went in, how much, and if it has run — three questions we ask before pricing, not after, for exactly that reason. Their answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Ewood, for a moment
Ewood is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 112 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Ewood is located near several other suburban areas, including Earcroft, Higher Croft, and Moorgate, and is approximately 9 miles from the city of Preston. Ewood has a population of around 3709 residents and is about 182 miles northwest of London. Ewood's riverside setting provides a distinctive character to the area.
Fuel drain cover across Lancashire, Ewood included
Petrol in diesel call-outs around Ewood — part of the BB postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the spots about it, Earcroft, Higher Croft and Moorgate included. You need not bring your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations we drain.
Still at the pump in Ewood?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better place. Turned off it remains; then call.