Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Godwell
Far less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor until something draws it through the fuel system — your ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the honest answer to the first query anyone around Godwell asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. To keep the car like that, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave the motor alone. The rest of this page covers what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It protects first, and only then does it burn. Extremely fine gaps are built into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and only the diesel running through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
The second job petrol does not do at all, and the first it does badly. The knocking 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 thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection the fuel system rests on, and any pump running on that mixture is wearing itself.
Put those together and the shape of the problem is clear. Contact doesn't do the harm — circulation does. Petrol in the tank is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by the fuel, into the fuel injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical issue starts.
Godwell, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to major
Filled up, not once started. The best case there can be. At a forecourt, and genuinely only there, the petrol is still confined to your tank — because everywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The job is draining and cleaning on the spot.
A moment's running, or just your ignition on. Your system has been primed, so petrol has left that tank and reached the fuel filter and your lines. That's normally still an easy job — a drain, a flush, and your filter dealt with.
Those few miles on the road meant the pump labouring on fuel thinned by petrol throughout. The work is the tank, your lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire system, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. Short trips, such as the school run to Stowford School, are one matter. Very different once more: a run to Plymouth, under 15 miles away, or some distance on the M5, under 50 miles from Godwell, where the engine never stopped labouring hard.
Driven on till it complained — rattling, smoke, an uneven idle, a dead throttle. What you are hearing is the engine reporting fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Shortlands Way, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it there. A car pulled over soon very seldom has lasting damage, since the fuel drain and the flush, which still go first, take care of it.
Godwell people and the petrol in a diesel stories they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank simply holds more of the same blend. A diesel fuel system doesn't tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that guidance assumes.
If anything, the reverse is true. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Protection counts more on modern diesels, not less, because their fuel passes through more precise parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up more motorists than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it normally will not run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Whilst the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct problem. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still in your tank afterwards.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, waiting to go right back through your pump on your next start. It's also truly dangerous to drain petrol into a can by the roadside.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
It's rarely carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. A diesel nozzle generally won't fit a petrol motor, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake simple, and only in that direction.
When routine and the car stop matching, it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Filling up in a hurry en route to Ivybridge, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up around Godwell
- The label is what counts, and so read the pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt.
- Check the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a motor you don't know.
- Label the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump. It seems silly and it works.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck the phone away.
- Add-on devices exist for cars without one, and some diesels come with a filler that won't take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in the tank means a weaker blend. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Godwell?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Never start the car, and don't turn the ignition on. Still at the forecourt, at BP or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and if it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a different fault, with its own page for Godwell, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication.
One petrol in a diesel job in Godwell costs more than another. Why?
Four separate tasks lie behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single price. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that got in as a proportion of what your tank takes, then the place your car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three questions: your fuel that got in, its volume, and if it has run. That is why. With the replies, there is a straight figure instead of a range.
About Godwell and where it is
Godwell is a locality in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of 52 metres, approximately 10 miles north of Plymouth. Godwell lies near the villages of Filham and Ivybridge, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Godwell is a relatively small community, with a population of around 943 residents, and is located within the South West region of England.
Godwell and Devon: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Godwell sits in the PL postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the locations around it as well — Filham, Penquit and Ivybridge among them. The car does not need to move to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
Godwell: still at the pump?
Nothing beats it: that's where you now are. Ring, and leave it turned off.