Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Fenwick
Less than you likely are, if it hasn't been started. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your engine until something pulls it through your fuel system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or the drive itself. So the truthful answer to the first question everyone around Fenwick asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. To keep the car that way, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave the motor alone. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's gone, and how to stop it from happening again: that is the remainder of this page.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It lubricates first, and after that does it burn. Very fine gaps go into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and just the diesel flowing through stops those surfaces grinding together.
The second task 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, leaving a pump on the blend to wear itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is why you get the rattling.
Combined, those leave the shape of the problem plain. Contact doesn't do the damage — movement does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. The start of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Four situations our technicians see around Fenwick: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled but not once started — as good as it gets. Being at a forecourt is what makes this possible: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept in your tank alone, it is emptied and cleaned right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Once primed, the system has drawn petrol from the tank up to the filter and your lines. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still normally simple.
The pump has spent a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that is what driving the car meant. The work is that tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire system, and how hard the car was driven matters as much as how far. Driving the children to the local primary school is one kind of trip. Any miles on the M77, under a mile from Fenwick, means your engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Glasgow, under 25 miles away, is a very different job as well.
Knocking, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Kirkton Road. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with lasting damage very rare if a vehicle is pulled over quickly.
Fenwick drivers and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — that tank just holds more of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. A current diesel sends its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that fools people. The driver of a petrol engine fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, idles and pulls away as if nothing happened — all the while its pump wears. Fine and running are not the same thing.
An outdated workaround for a different fault lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." The petrol is still in the tank after that, and what it has weakened isn't put back.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, since after it's been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go right back through your pump on your next start. Draining petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
It is seldom carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. A diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake simple, and only in one direction.
Habit and your car falling out of step is how it occurs. A motor that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A hurried fill en route to Stewarton with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it occurs. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Fenwick
- The label is what matters, so read the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt.
- In a motor you don't know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: many cars state the fuel there.
- Mark your key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- It sounds silly and it does the trick: on your 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're thinking about something else.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for vehicles without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Stop as soon as you notice. Less petrol in that tank makes a thinner blend. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Fenwick: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is short. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off too. Ask the attendants to help you push it clear of the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's BP or anywhere else. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — the fuel, the rough amount, and if it's run.
If it was AdBlue rather than petrol, say so. That's a separate problem — corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Fenwick.
What makes one Fenwick petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
There is no fair single quote for this, since the four situations above are four separate jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what moves the cost. The ratio counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of your car and whether reaching it is safe for our van.
What got in, how much, and if it's run — three questions our technicians ask before pricing, not after, for exactly that reason. A range turns into a straight figure once the replies are in.
About Fenwick itself
Fenwick is a village situated on the banks of a river in East Ayrshire, with a mix of rural and suburban characteristics. Fenwick sits at an elevation of 142 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and within commuting distance of Glasgow. Fenwick has a population of around 767 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Fenwick is located near other small settlements, including Laigh Fenwick and Waterside.
Fuel drain cover across East Ayrshire, Fenwick included
Laigh Fenwick, Waterside and Moscow are among the places around Fenwick that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Fenwick's KA postcode area. You need not move your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places we drain.
In Fenwick and still at the petrol pump?
No position is better: that is where you are. Keep the vehicle turned off, then ring.