Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Greenfield
Far less than you likely are, provided it hasn't been started. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the engine until something pulls it through the system — your ignition priming the pump, your starter, or the drive on its own. So the honest answer to the first question everyone around Greenfield asks, "have I wrecked it?", is generally no. Leave the motor off then phone Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The rest of this page explains what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
On its way through an engine, diesel has two tasks. It burns, and before it ignites it lubricates. The high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors are made to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing down against each other.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. The clattering comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips out the protection your system rests on, and any pump running on such a mix is wearing itself.
Seen together, they make clear the shape the issue has. It's circulation that does the damage, not contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the injectors further on.
Greenfield, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to significant
Filled but not once started — as good as it gets. On a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still limited to that tank — since anywhere else the car was driven to reach it. The task is emptying and flushing on the spot.
The ignition turned on, or a brief start. Petrol has come out of your tank and reached the fuel filter and the fuel lines, because the fuel system has been primed. Usually nothing more than draining, cleaning and seeing to your filter, so still easy.
Those few miles driven meant your pump working on fuel weakened by petrol the whole way. The work is that tank, the lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the whole circuit, and how hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far. Driving the children to Colne Primet Primary School is one sort of trip. Very different a second time: a trip to Bradford, under 25 miles away, or some distance on the M65, under a mile from Greenfield, where the engine never stopped working hard.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, rattling, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. That is the motor telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Greenfield Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it. What comes first is still the drain and flush-through, and that sorts it out, with permanent damage very rare if a vehicle is stopped soon.
Greenfield motorists and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a fuller tank, still the same mixture. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that guidance supposes.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Finer parts and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
This is the one that fools people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." Diesel in a petrol motor normally leaves a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally starts, idles and drives away like nothing happened — all while its pump is wearing. Running isn't the same as fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It's an old workaround for a separate issue. None of what petrol diluted is put back by it — and later, the tank still holds that petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump on your next start. Also, a can of petrol filled at the kerbside is genuinely hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
Carelessness is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol vehicle. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
It takes place when habit and your car stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. Fuelling up in a rush on the way to Colne, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist used to petrol: exactly when it takes place. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, the hand just does what it has always done.
Greenfield drivers: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- 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, yet not on each forecourt.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar motor is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many vehicles state which fuel they take.
- One of each in the house? Mark the key to the diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember is not enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make whilst your mind is on something else, so your phone goes away.
- Add-on devices are available for cars without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol in that tank makes a thinner mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Greenfield already?
Then, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off too. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at EG On the Move itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it away from the petrol pump if you ask. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate issue — Greenfield has a page just for it.
Greenfield petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
A fair single price doesn't exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what shifts your cost. Where your car is matters too, and whether our van can safely reach it, after the proportion of petrol to what that tank takes.
Three queries come first, before quoting, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Greenfield itself
Greenfield is a suburban area situated on the edge of a lake in Lancashire, with a mix of terraced housing and scenic views. Greenfield sits at an elevation of 133 metres, providing a pleasant setting for its residents. Greenfield is located near several nearby places, including Bunkers Hill, Primet Bridge, and Church Clough, and is approximately 18.3 miles from Bradford. Greenfield has a population of around 2076 people, making it a small but established community.
Fuel drain cover across Lancashire, Greenfield included
Greenfield rests in the BB postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the places around it as well — Bunkers Hill, Primet Bridge and Church Clough among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places our technicians work, and the vehicle doesn't need to come to us.
Greenfield: still at the pump?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Switched off it remains; then phone.