Fleet Hargate: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Far less than you likely are, provided it has not been started. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first thing everyone in Fleet Hargate asks, and the truthful answer is usually no, since petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it's dragged through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by being driven. Keep it like that: leave the motor off and call Petrol in Diesel. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you a second time.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It burns, and before it ignites it lubricates. Your high-pressure pump and the injectors are made to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing down against each other.
Of those two jobs, petrol handles the first poorly and the second never. The clattering comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips away the lubrication the system hinges on, and any pump working on that blend is wearing itself.
Combined, those make the shape of the trouble plain. The harm is done by movement, not by contact. Where the petrol is only in your tank, it's a problem of fuel, nothing more. Once the pump has been labouring on that petrol, a mechanical fault has started: whatever is shed by a pump that's wearing is carried downstream to your injectors with your fuel.
Petrol in a diesel around Fleet Hargate: how serious is it? Four situations
Fuelled, and never started: nothing beats it. Only your tank has petrol in it, so the job is clearing the tank and purging the system where your car sits. This situation can only truly occur at a forecourt: anywhere else, your car got there by being driven.
Started for a second, or just the ignition on. Petrol has left that tank and reached the fuel filter and the lines, since the system has been primed. Still usually easy: drain, flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Your pump has worked a couple of miles on thinned fuel — that's what driving it meant. The work is your tank, your lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system, and how hard your car was driven matters as much as how far. The school run to Gedney Church End Primary Academy is one thing. Very different again: a run to Peterborough, under 25 miles away, or some distance on the A1(M), under 25 miles from Fleet Hargate, where the motor never stopped running hard.
Rattling, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Fleet Road. A car stopped quickly very rarely has long-term damage, as the drain and the flush, which still go first, take care of it.
Fleet Hargate drivers and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank simply holds more of the same mixture. That advice assumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
Not so: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Protection counts more on newer diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through smaller parts at higher pressure.
The myth that catches drivers out: 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 seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually will; meanwhile your pump grinds. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct fault. It does not put back what petrol has weakened, and the petrol is still inside that tank after that.
The next start draws petrol back round your pump from your lines and the filter, where some of it ends up after the motor has been run. That's why draining your tank yourself doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. On top of that, petrol drained into a can by the road is truly risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. So the slip runs one way.
When habit and the vehicle stop matching, it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Two cars on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Spalding with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. With rain, a call coming in, or children to deal with, your hand simply does what it has always done.
Fleet Hargate people: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- Many motors state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check there on the first fill in a car you don't know.
- One of each in the household? Mark your key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since intending to remember is not enough.
- It seems daft and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud 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.
- Add-on devices are available for cars without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a backstop at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in your tank means a thinner mix. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Petrol already in a diesel in Fleet Hargate? Start here
Then the order of things is brief. Do not crank it, and don't switch your ignition on. Ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the petrol pump if you are still at the forecourt, whether that's Pace or somewhere else. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the approximate volume, and whether it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a separate fault, with its own page for Fleet Hargate, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication.
What makes one Fleet Hargate petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
The four scenarios above are four separate tasks, so no single price for this would be fair. Which of them you're in is chiefly what moves your cost. The proportion counts next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the location of the car and whether getting to it is safe for a van.
That is why our technicians ask three queries before pricing instead of after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Fleet Hargate and where it is
Fleet Hargate is a small village in southern Lincolnshire, situated near the fenland edge and close to the Wash coastline. Fleet Hargate lies at a low elevation of around 6 metres, in a flat and predominantly agricultural landscape. Fleet Hargate is characterised by its detached housing and quiet rural atmosphere, with nearby villages including Fleet and Gedney.
Fuel drain cover in Fleet Hargate and across Lincolnshire
Petrol in diesel jobs in Fleet Hargate — part of the PE postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the locations about it, Fleet, Gedney and Holbeach Hurn among them. The vehicle doesn't need to come to us: our engineers drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
At the petrol pump in Fleet Hargate, still?
Then, you couldn't be in a better position. Turned off it stays; then ring.