How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Fountainbridge
Probably less than you already are — provided no one has started the vehicle. Till your ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or the vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does no harm. Which makes the truthful reply to the first Fountainbridge question — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Leave your engine off then call Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the signs of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route through a motor. Before it ignites, it lubricates — then it ignites. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing against one another is the diesel passing through them — they are made to extremely fine gaps.
Petrol handles the first task poorly and the second not at all. The knocking comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips away the protection your system hinges on, and any pump working on such a mixture is wearing itself.
The shape of the trouble is clear once you put those together. The harm is done by movement, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. Once the pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical problem has started: anything shed by a pump that is wearing is carried onward to your injectors with the fuel.
Petrol in a diesel around Fountainbridge: how bad is it? Four situations
Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there can be. That petrol is inside your tank and just your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one scenario that can only really occur at a forecourt, since anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or merely your ignition on. The system has been bled, and so petrol has left your tank and reached your filter and your lines. Normally little more than draining, cleaning and sorting your filter, so still straightforward.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent these miles labouring on thinned fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far, and this work covers that tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. Driving the children to the local primary school is one kind of trip. A run as far as Edinburgh, under 3 miles away, is a very different job. So is any distance on the M8, under 5 miles from Fountainbridge, where the motor has been running hard throughout.
Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and your motor is telling you. Whether it's the verge on Dundee Street, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they take care of it: if a vehicle is stopped soon, long-term damage is very rare.
Petrol in a diesel stories Fountainbridge drivers hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank simply holds more of the same blend. The idea behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through smaller components: that is how a current diesel handles its fuel, so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." This is the one that catches people. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally will not run, and so the driver stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst your pump wears. Running isn't the same as fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It's an outdated fix for a distinct problem. That petrol is still in that tank afterwards, and what it has weakened is not put back.
If the motor has been run, part of that petrol is in your filter and your lines, not the tank — and the next start sends it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. It is also truly risky to drain petrol into a can at the roadside.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
No one does it on purpose, and it is seldom carelessness. One way only, because of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle. That's how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
The moment habit stops matching your car is the moment it occurs. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Haymarket. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. The hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up in Fountainbridge
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — yet not on each forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- In a car you don't know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before your first fill: plenty of cars state the fuel there.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key if a household has one of each. So mark it.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, yes, but it works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol in the tank means a thinner mix. What to do next does not change, though — still don't start it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Fountainbridge? Start here
The order of things is brief, then. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off as well. Still at the forecourt, at JET or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the rough amount, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the trouble with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Fountainbridge page.
Fountainbridge petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single quote for this would be fair. Mostly, your cost shifts with which situation you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that went in as a share of what your tank takes, then the place your car is in and whether a van can get to it safely.
Three queries come first, before any quote, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Fountainbridge, for a moment
Fountainbridge is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 1.2 miles from Edinburgh's city centre. Fountainbridge sits near the Water of Leith, at an elevation of around 71 metres, and is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing. Fountainbridge is close to other nearby places such as Tollcross, Dalry, and the West End, and is home to a population of around 22597 people.
Fountainbridge and City of Edinburgh: where our fuel drain cover runs
Petrol in diesel calls in Fountainbridge — part of the EH postcode area — go to vans that likewise cover the spots round it, Tollcross, Dalry and West End among them. The vehicle doesn't need to move to us: we drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
At the pump around Fountainbridge, right now?
The best place there is, then — that's where you are. Keep it off. Phone.