How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Great Lever
Likely less than you already are — as long as no one has started it. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor till something pulls it through the system — your ignition priming your pump, your starter, or driving itself. So the truthful answer to the first question anyone in Great Lever asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. To keep it like that, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave the motor alone. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you don't do it again.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two things at once. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Designed to very fine tolerances, the injectors and the pump rely on your diesel moving through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the protection your fuel system depends on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that is where the clattering comes.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. Not contact but circulation is what causes the harm. Where the petrol is only in the tank, it's an issue of fuel, nothing more. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four scenarios we see around Great Lever: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, and not started: nothing beats it. On a forecourt, and really only there, the petrol is still limited to that tank — since everywhere else the car was driven to reach it. The task is draining and cleaning on the spot.
Your ignition switched on, or a brief start. The system has been bled, so petrol has left that tank and reached the fuel filter and the lines. That's usually still a simple job — a drain, a flush, and the filter dealt with.
Driven a couple of miles. Now your pump has spent those miles labouring on weakened fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel run through the whole circuit: that is this work, and the way the car was driven matters as much as the distance. On the school run to Ss Simon & Jude CofE Primary School, Bolton, the mileage is small. Very different again: a run to Salford, under 10 miles away, or some distance on the M61, under 3 miles from Great Lever, where the motor never stopped running hard.
Driven on till it complained — rattling, smoke, a ragged idle, a dead throttle. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and your engine is saying so. Whether it's the verge on Forester Hill Avenue, a lay-by or a side road, stop there then leave it. What comes first is still the drain and flush-through, and that sorts it out, with long-term damage very rare if a car is stopped quickly.
Petrol in a diesel myths Great Lever people hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. A bigger tank of the same mix is all you get, because topping up removes nothing. The assumption behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Not so: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the opposite. A current diesel sends its fuel through smaller parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that catches people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor normally means a motor that will not run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, while your pump grinds. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a different fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and the petrol is still in your tank afterwards.
Myth: "Drain the tank yourself and you're sorted." After your engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer inside your tank: it's in the filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through your pump on the next start. And, a can of petrol drained at the roadside is genuinely hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
It is seldom carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. A diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol motor, yet the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and just in one direction.
The moment routine stops matching the car is the moment it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's brand new. Two motors on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Rushing for a train at Moses Gate and filling up en route. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist used to petrol: precisely when it happens. Your hand repeats what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Next time you fill up around Great Lever: preventing petrol in a diesel
- The label is what counts, and so check the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- In a motor you do not know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before the first fill: plenty of motors state the fuel type there.
- Mark the key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds silly. It works.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck your phone away.
- Add-on devices are available for cars without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that won't take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol inside your tank makes a thinner blend. What to do next does not change, though — still don't crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Great Lever already?
Then the order of things is short. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. Yet at the forecourt, at Texaco or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run.
If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That is a different issue — corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Great Lever.
One petrol in a diesel job around Great Lever costs more than another. Why?
The four scenarios above are four different tasks, so no single price for this would be honest. Mostly, the cost moves with which situation you're in. Where your car is matters too, and whether a van can safely reach it, after the ratio of petrol to what the tank takes.
Three questions come first, before quoting, rather than after — what got in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure when the answers are in.
About Great Lever itself
Great Lever is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near several lakes and waterways, with an elevation of around 107 metres. Great Lever lies approximately 7.6 miles from Salford and is surrounded by nearby places such as Burnden, Rose Hill, and Harper Green. Great Lever has a population of around 12,123 people and is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock. Great Lever is located in the North West region of England, about 171.5 miles from London.
Fuel drain cover in Great Lever and across Greater Manchester
Great Lever waits in the BL postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots around it as well — Burnden, Rose Hill and Harper Green among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all spots our technicians drain, and your car does not need to move to us.
Still at the petrol pump around Great Lever?
Then you are in the best spot there is. Call, and leave it turned off.