How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Greenhill
Provided it hasn't been started, worry less than you likely are. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your engine till something draws it through the system — the ignition priming the pump, the starter, or the drive on its own. So the truthful answer to the first query everyone around Greenhill asks, "have I ruined it?", is generally no. Leave your engine off and call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you never do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It combusts, and before it combusts it lubricates. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors from wearing against one another is the diesel flowing through them — they are designed to extremely fine clearances.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump on the mixture to wear itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the rattling.
The shape of the issue is clear once you put those together. It's movement that causes the harm, not contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Petrol in a diesel around Greenhill: how bad is it? Four situations
Filled up, and never started: no case is better. That petrol is inside your tank and just your tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one scenario that can only really occur at a forecourt, since anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
Started for a second, or only the ignition on. With the system primed, the lines and filter now contain petrol that has come from that tank. That is normally still an easy task — a drain, a flush, and your filter seen to.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them labouring on diluted fuel. Miles is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way the work includes your tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole system. A school run to St Mary's Catholic Primary School is one matter. A run as far as Worcester, under 15 miles away, is a very different job. So is any mileage on the Strensham Interchange, under 10 miles from Greenhill, where the motor has been running hard throughout.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. What you are hearing is the engine signalling fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Victoria Avenue. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that takes care of it, with permanent damage very uncommon when a car is pulled over soon.
What Greenhill drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice assumes.
Not so: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. Protection matters more on current diesels, not less, since their fuel passes through smaller parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that catches more motorists than any other. The driver of a petrol engine fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the damage stops there. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually will; meanwhile your pump grinds. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct fault. That petrol is still in the tank afterwards, and whatever it has diluted isn't put back.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." After your engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer inside the tank: it's in the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and it goes right back through your pump at your next start. On top of that, petrol cleared into a can by the road is truly dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one generally will not fit a petrol motor. That is how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
It takes place when routine and the car stop matching. Any motor that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your normal forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Evesham. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, the hand simply does what it always has.
Next time you fill up in Greenhill: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- The label is what matters, and so check the pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- The first fill in a new vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many cars state which fuel they take.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on the diesel's key when a home has one of each. So label it.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so put your phone away then keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, and so stop as soon as you realise — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to fire it up.
Greenhill: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then, there's only a short order of things. Do not crank it, and do not turn your ignition on. Ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the pump if you're still on the forecourt, whether that's Tesco or somewhere else. What went in, about how much, and if it's run: tell us that when you call 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a separate fault, with its own page for Greenhill, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication.
One petrol in a diesel task in Greenhill costs more than another. Why?
There's no honest single price for this, since the four scenarios above are four separate tasks. The situation itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Beyond that it is the share — how much petrol got in against how much that tank holds — and then where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely.
What was put in, how much, and if it's run — three questions our technicians ask before pricing, not after, for precisely that reason. Those replies are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Greenhill, briefly
Greenhill is a suburban area located on the riverside in Worcestershire, with a relatively low elevation of 45 metres. Greenhill sits near the city of Worcester, approximately 13.5 miles away, and is also close to other nearby places such as Evesham, Bengeworth, and Twyford. Greenhill has a population of around 4203 people and is characterised by a predominance of flat housing. Greenhill is situated in the West Midlands region, about 87.7 miles from London.
Across Worcestershire and around Greenhill: fuel drain cover
Greenhill rests in the WR postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the places around it as well — Evesham, Bengeworth and Twyford among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all spots our technicians drain, and the vehicle does not need to come to us.
Greenhill: still at the pump?
Then you are in the best position there can be. Turned off it remains; then call.