Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Great Haywood
Less than you likely are, provided it hasn't been started. Until your ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or the vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply waits there and does no harm. Which means the truthful reply to that first Great Haywood query — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it's gone, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that is the rest of this page.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel does
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It lubricates to begin with, and only then does it burn. Extremely fine clearances are built into your injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and only your diesel flowing through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
Petrol handles the first job badly and the second not at all. The clattering comes from petrol being designed 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 lubrication the system depends on, and any pump working on such a blend is wearing itself.
Seen together, they show what shape the issue has. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel problem. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors downstream.
Petrol in a diesel in Great Haywood: how bad is it? Four situations
The best case there is: filled up, not once started. Just that tank has petrol in it, and so the task is emptying your tank and flushing your system where your car sits. This scenario can only really take place at a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter now contain petrol that has come from your tank. Usually little more than clearing, flushing and sorting your filter, and so still easy.
Some miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them running on thinned fuel. How hard the car was driven matters as much as how far, and this work takes in the tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit. The school run to Anson CofE Primary School is one matter. Getting as far as Lichfield, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any miles on the M6, under 5 miles from Great Haywood, with your engine running hard all the way.
Driven until it protested. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and the motor is saying so. Stop where you are — on the verge on Main Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. What goes first is still the drain and flush, and that deals with it, with permanent damage very uncommon if a car is pulled over quickly.
What Great Haywood drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice assumes.
If anything, the opposite holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Lubrication counts more on current diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through more precise components at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it usually will not run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Whilst your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened. A running engine does not mean fine.
An outdated workaround for a different issue lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." What petrol has diluted stays weakened, and the petrol remains inside your tank anyway.
The next start sends petrol back round the pump out of the lines and the fuel filter, where some of it ends up once the engine has run. That is why a DIY tank drain does not leave you sorted — a myth. On top of that, petrol drained into a can by the road is genuinely dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
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 won't go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the slip runs one way.
Habit and the car getting out of step is how it happens. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that is new. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. Rushing for a train outside Rugeley Trent Valley and filling up en route. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Your hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Great Haywood
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on each forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Check your filler flap. Many motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any car you do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember, in a home with one of each.
- 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.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Add-on devices exist for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a safety net at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop there and then. A thinner mix results from less petrol inside the tank, yet the next stage stays the same: do not fire it up.
Great Haywood: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Don't switch your ignition on, and do not crank it. Ask the staff to help you roll it clear of the pump if you're still on the forecourt, whether that's Harvest Energy or anywhere else. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the approximate quantity, and if it's run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different problem — Great Haywood has a page all for it.
One petrol in a diesel job around Great Haywood costs more than another. Why?
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be honest. Mostly, the cost moves with which one you're in. The proportion matters next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the location of the car and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
That's why our technicians ask three queries before pricing instead of after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Great Haywood itself
Great Haywood is a village situated on the River Trent in Staffordshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Great Haywood sits at an elevation of 77 metres, near the confluence of the Trent and the River Sow, and is located close to the villages of Little Haywood and Tixall. Great Haywood has a population of around 2029 people and is approximately 11 miles from the city of Lichfield. Great Haywood is also within commuting distance of larger cities, being around 120 miles from London.
Great Haywood and Staffordshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Petrol in diesel jobs in Great Haywood — part of the ST postcode area — go to vans that likewise cover the spots about it, Little Haywood, Little Ingestre and Tixall included. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all places our engineers drain, and the car doesn't need to move to us.
Still at the petrol pump in Great Haywood?
The best position there is, then — that's where you are. Phone, and leave it switched off.