Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Featherstone
Not started? Then less anxious than you probably are. Until the ignition primes the pump, the starter cranks, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which means the truthful reply to that first Featherstone query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Keep it that way: leave your engine off and ring Petrol in Diesel. Further down, this page sets out what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you a second time.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel really does
On its way through an engine, diesel has two tasks. It protects to begin with, and only then does it burn. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing against one another is the diesel flowing through them — they're made to extremely fine gaps.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump running on the mixture to wear itself. It is equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you get the rattling.
Combined, those leave the shape of the problem clear. Not contact but circulation is what causes the harm. Where that petrol is only inside the tank, it is a fault of fuel, nothing more. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into your injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on that petrol is where a mechanical problem begins.
Petrol in a diesel in Featherstone: how serious is it? Four cases
Fuelled but not once started — as good as it gets. At a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still limited to your tank — since everywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The job is emptying and flushing on the spot.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. The system has been bled, so petrol has left your tank and got to the fuel filter and the fuel lines. Still normally straightforward: drain, flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
The pump now spent a couple of miles on weakened fuel — that's what driving the car meant. How hard the car was driven matters as much as how far, and the work covers that tank, the lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. A school run to Featherstone Academy is one matter. A run as far as Wolverhampton, under 5 miles away, is a very different job. So is any miles on the M54, under a mile from Featherstone, where your engine has been labouring hard throughout.
Driven till it complained. Clattering, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on South Crescent. What goes first is still the drain and flush-through, and that deals with it, with lasting damage very uncommon when a car is pulled over soon.
Stories Featherstone drivers 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 when you top up — that tank just carries more of the same mixture. The assumption behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that's how a newer diesel moves its fuel, and so the protection counts for more, not less.
The myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally won't run, so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally fires up, idles and drives away like nothing happened — all while its pump is wearing. Running is not the same as fine.
An outdated fix for a different problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." That petrol is still in the tank after that, and whatever it has diluted is not put back.
Once the motor has run, part of that petrol is in your filter and your lines, not the tank — and the next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't hold. And, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is genuinely dangerous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
No one does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error easy, and just in one direction.
Routine and the vehicle getting out of step is how it occurs. A car that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps laid out differently. A hurried fill on the way to Landywood with a train to catch. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Passat in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit wins.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Featherstone
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on each forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- Check the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a car you do not know.
- Mark your key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems daft and it works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for cars without one. They are a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Less petrol means a weaker mix, so stop as soon as you notice — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to start it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Featherstone? Begin here
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Don't start it, and don't turn your ignition on. Yet on the forecourt, at Harvest Energy or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, about how much, and if it has run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That's a separate issue — corrosion and deposits and not lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Featherstone.
One petrol in a diesel job in Featherstone costs more than another. Why?
An honest single price does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which one you are in. The ratio matters next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, followed by the position of the vehicle and whether getting to it is safe for a technician.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three questions: the fuel that was put in, the amount, and if it has run. That's why. A range turns into a straight figure once the answers are in.
About Featherstone itself
Featherstone is a village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 139 metres, approximately 4.3 miles from Wolverhampton. Featherstone has a population of around 1776 people, with predominantly semi-detached housing. Featherstone is close to nearby places such as Moseley, Shareshill, and Little Saredon, and is about 114.4 miles northwest of London.
Fuel drain cover in Featherstone and across Staffordshire
Our vans answering petrol in diesel jobs in Featherstone, in the WV postcode area, equally work the locations near it, Moseley, Shareshill and Little Saredon among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all spots our engineers work, and your vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
Featherstone: still at the petrol pump?
Then, you could not be in a better position. Phone, and keep it turned off.