Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Flookburgh
Provided it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you likely are. Everyone in Flookburgh starts with "have I ruined it?", and the honest answer is usually no: petrol left in your tank of any diesel stays harmless till priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the fuel system. Keep it that way: leave your engine off then ring Petrol in Diesel. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
On its way through a motor, diesel does two jobs. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from grinding against each other is the diesel flowing through them — they're made to very fine clearances.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. A pump working on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where any knocking comes.
Put these together and the shape of the trouble is plain. Not contact but circulation is what causes the damage. Any tank with petrol in it 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 the fuel to the injectors downstream.
Four scenarios our engineers see around Flookburgh: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there is. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, that petrol is still confined to your tank — because everywhere else the vehicle was driven to reach it. The task is emptying and purging on the spot.
The ignition switched on, or a brief start. Once primed, the fuel system has drawn petrol out of the tank up to the filter and your lines. That is usually still an easy job — a drain, a flush, and your filter dealt with.
A few miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them running on weakened fuel. Mileage is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work runs to your tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit. Driving the kids to Flookburgh CofE Primary School is one kind of trip. Driving as far as Lancaster, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any distance on the M6, under 10 miles from Flookburgh, with the motor running hard the whole time.
Driven on until it complained — rattling, smoke, a ragged idle, a dead throttle. What you are hearing is your engine reporting fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Station Road. A car stopped quickly very rarely has lasting damage, as the drain and the flush-through, which still come first, take care of it.
Petrol in a diesel myths Flookburgh motorists hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. That guidance supposes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
Not so: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Lubrication counts more on modern diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through more precise parts at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." Diesel in a petrol motor normally means a motor that will not run: the driver stops, and so does the damage. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, while the pump grinds. Running isn't the same as fine.
An old fix for a distinct fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It doesn't put back what petrol has diluted, and the petrol is still in that tank afterwards.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, ready to go straight back through your pump at the next start. It's also genuinely dangerous to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the mistake runs one way.
Habit and the vehicle getting out of step is how it happens. Any car that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to Cark. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up around Flookburgh
- The label is what counts, and so read the petrol pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- The first fill in a new car is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, plenty of cars state which fuel to use.
- Mark the key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump. It sounds daft and it works.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler built to refuse 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.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop there and then. A thinner mixture results from less petrol inside your tank, but the next stage stays the same: don't crank it.
Flookburgh: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on the ignition. Still on the forecourt, at BP or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push it away from the pump. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and if it has run.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Flookburgh page.
Flookburgh petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
Four different tasks sit behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single quote. Which of them you're in is mostly what moves the cost. Where your car is matters too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what your tank holds.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Those answers are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Flookburgh and its setting
Flookburgh is a small coastal village in Cumbria, situated near the estuary of the River Leven, with Ravenstown, Cark, and Holker nearby. Flookburgh has a population of around 962 people and is characterized by semi-detached housing. Flookburgh sits at a low elevation of 18 metres above sea level, close to the shores of Morecambe Bay. Flookburgh is located approximately 11 miles from Lancaster and 219 miles from London.
Fuel drain cover around Flookburgh and across Cumbria
Ravenstown, Cark and Holker are among the spots around Flookburgh that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Flookburgh's LA postcode area. The car does not need to come to us: we drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
Flookburgh: still at the petrol pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better place. Call, and leave it switched off.