Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Garrets Green
If it has not been started, you can worry far less than you probably are. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your engine till something pulls it through your fuel system — your ignition priming the pump, the starter, or the drive on its own. So the honest answer to the first question everyone around Garrets Green asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to call, with your motor left off, and so it stays that way. The rest of this page explains 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.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Passing through an engine, diesel does two jobs at the same time. Before it combusts, it lubricates — and then it burns. The high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors are designed to very fine gaps, and your diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing down against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. The clattering 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 runnier than diesel, it strips away the protection your system hinges on, and any pump running on such a mix is wearing itself.
Combined, those make the shape of the problem clear. Contact doesn't do the harm — movement does. Petrol in the tank is a fuel problem. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the injectors downstream.
Petrol in a diesel in Garrets Green: how bad is it? Four situations
Fuelled but never started — as good as it gets. On a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still confined to that tank — since everywhere else the car was driven to reach it. The task is draining and purging on the spot.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Petrol has come out of that tank and reached the fuel filter and your lines, because the fuel system has been primed. Usually nothing more than emptying, cleaning and sorting the filter, so still easy.
Those few miles on the road meant your pump working on fuel weakened by petrol throughout. Miles is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work includes that tank, the fuel lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. Driving the kids to Oasis Academy Blakenhale Junior is one kind of trip. Very different once more: a run to Birmingham, under 5 miles away, or some mileage on the M6, under 3 miles from Garrets Green, where your engine never stopped labouring hard.
Driven until it protested. Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The engine is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Elmay Road. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they deal with it: when a car is stopped soon, long-term damage is very rare.
What Garrets Green motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." A fuller tank of the same mix is all it gives, because topping up takes out nothing. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that advice assumes.
"Modern diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the reverse. A newer diesel runs its fuel through finer parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
The myth that catches motorists off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it generally will not run, and so the driver stops — and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst your pump wears. Fine and running are not the same at all.
Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It was an old fix, supposed for another issue. What petrol has weakened stays diluted, and that petrol remains in your tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol lies in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go right back through your pump at your next start. And, a can of petrol drained by the roadside is truly risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it happen?
No one does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. One way only, because of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
Routine and your car falling out of step is how it happens. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A hurried fill on the way to Lea Hall with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it takes place. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and your hand does what it has always done.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up around Garrets Green
- 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.
- The first fill in a new car is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many motors state the fuel they take.
- One of each in the household? Mark your key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, yes, but it works.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, so your phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for cars without one. They are a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol inside that tank means a thinner blend. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel around Garrets Green? Start here
The order of things is short, then. Don't turn the ignition on, and do not start it. Ask the attendants to help you push it away from the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's BP or somewhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what got in, about how much, and if it has been run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a different issue, with its own page for Garrets Green, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
Garrets Green petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
There's no fair single price for this, since the four scenarios above are four different tasks. What moves your cost is chiefly which of them you are in. Next it is the share — how much petrol was put in against how much that tank takes — and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three queries: your fuel that went in, its volume, and whether it has run. That's why. With those replies, there is a straight figure rather than a range.
About Garrets Green itself
Garrets Green is a locality in the West Midlands, situated approximately 4.9 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre. Garrets Green sits at an elevation of around 105 metres, in a predominantly residential area with a mix of semi-detached housing. Garrets Green is close to other nearby places such as Lyndon Green and Gilbertstone, and is about 96.9 miles northwest of London.
Fuel drain cover in Garrets Green and across West Midlands
Petrol in diesel calls in Garrets Green — part of the B postcode area — go to vans that likewise cover the places round it, Garretts Green, Lyndon Green and Gilbertstone included. Our engineers drain wherever your vehicle is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
Still at the pump in Garrets Green?
Then you're in the best place there is. Leave the vehicle switched off, then ring.