How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Ferrybridge
Unstarted? Then less worried than you probably are. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first question everyone around Ferrybridge asks, and the truthful answer is normally no, since petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it's drawn through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by being driven. Keep it that way: leave the motor off and call Petrol in Diesel. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel really does
On its way through a motor, diesel has two jobs. Before it combusts, it lubricates — then it ignites. What keeps the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and your injectors from wearing against one another is the diesel passing through them — they're built to extremely fine gaps.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where the rattling starts.
Put these together and the shape of the issue is clear. It's movement that causes the harm, not contact. Where that petrol is only inside that tank, it's a fault of fuel, nothing more. Once your pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical issue has started: whatever is shed by a pump that's wearing travels downstream to the fuel injectors with the fuel.
Ferrybridge, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to significant
Fuelled, and never started: no case is better. Being on a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept inside your tank alone, it is drained and purged on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. Petrol has come out of your tank and got to the fuel filter and the fuel lines, since your system has been primed. That's normally still an easy job — a drain, a flush, and the filter seen to.
Your pump has worked a few miles on weakened fuel — that's what driving the vehicle meant. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the entire system: that's the work, and the way the car was driven matters as much as the mileage. A school run to The Vale Primary Academy is one thing. Any distance on the A1(M), under a mile from Ferrybridge, means the engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Wakefield, under 10 miles away, is a very different task as well.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, rattling, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and the engine is saying so. Stop wherever you are — the verge on B6136, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle there. A car pulled over early very seldom has long-term damage, since the fuel drain and the flush, which still come first, deal with it.
Stories Ferrybridge drivers hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. A bigger tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that guidance presumes.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that's how a modern diesel handles its fuel, so the protection counts more, not less.
The myth that catches people off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it generally will not run, so the driver stops — and the harm stops with them. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile your pump wears. Running doesn't mean fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old fix, meant for another fault. What petrol has weakened stays diluted, and that petrol remains inside that tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump on the next start. Clearing petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really hazardous.
Why petrol in a diesel takes place so easily
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. One way only, because of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle. That is how the forecourt makes it easy.
Habit and your car getting out of step is when it happens. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two vehicles on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. Fuelling up in a hurry en route to Knottingley, with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Clio after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it takes place. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, the hand just does what it always has.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Ferrybridge
- The label is what counts, and so read the petrol pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt.
- Check the filler flap. Many vehicles 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.
- Mark the 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 meaning to remember.
- It sounds daft and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Whilst you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the rest. Treat it as a backstop, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol inside your tank makes a thinner blend. What to do next does not change, though — still don't start the car.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Ferrybridge?
Then the order of things is brief. Don't switch your ignition on, and do not crank it. If you're still at the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push the car away from the pump. Ring 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the approximate volume, and if it's run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate issue — Ferrybridge has a page all for it.
Ferrybridge petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate tasks, so no single price for this would be fair. What shifts your cost is mostly which of them you're in. Where the car is matters too, and whether our van can safely reach it, after the ratio of petrol to what that tank holds.
That is why we ask three questions before quoting rather than after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Their answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Ferrybridge
Ferrybridge is a village situated on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with Ferrybridge being close to the cities of Wakefield and Leeds. Ferrybridge has a population of around 1673 people and is characterized by its semi-detached housing. Ferrybridge sits at a low elevation of 14 metres, near to the nearby places of Ferrybridge Hill, Byram, and Sutton.
Across West Yorkshire and in Ferrybridge: fuel drain cover
Ferrybridge sits in the WF postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the places near it as well — Ferrybridge Hill, Byram and Sutton among them. Our technicians drain wherever the vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
Ferrybridge: still at the petrol pump?
The best place there is, then — that's where you are. Keep the vehicle switched off, and ring.