How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Gretton
Less than you likely are, if it hasn't been started. Till your ignition primes the pump, the starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does nothing. Which means the honest reply to that first Gretton query — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. Keep it like that: leave your motor off then phone Petrol in Diesel. Below, this page sets out what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It protects first, and after that does it burn. Made to very fine gaps, your injectors and the pump rely on your diesel moving through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the lubrication a fuel system needs, leaving a pump running 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 get the knocking.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the injectors further on.
Petrol in a diesel around Gretton: how bad is it? Four cases
Fuelled, and not started: no case is better. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, that petrol is still limited to the tank — since anywhere else the car was driven to reach it. The task is draining and flushing on the spot.
The ignition turned on, or a short start. Petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and the fuel lines, since the system has been bled. Usually nothing more than emptying, purging and sorting the filter, so still straightforward.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them labouring on thinned fuel. The work is your tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire system, and how hard the car was driven matters as much as how far. A school run to Gretton Primary School is one matter. Very different a second time: a trip to Gloucester, under 15 miles away, or some mileage on the M5, under 10 miles from Gretton, where the engine kept labouring hard.
Driven till it complained. Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Gretton Road, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. The drain and flush still come first, and they sort it out: if a vehicle is stopped quickly, lasting damage is very rare.
Gretton people and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. A fuller tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that guidance supposes.
If anything, the opposite holds. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Protection counts more on modern diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through smaller components at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor generally leaves a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the damage. Whilst your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened. Running isn't the same as fine.
An outdated workaround for a separate issue lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." What petrol has thinned stays thinned, and the petrol remains inside that tank regardless.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, ready to go right back through your pump on the next start. It's also genuinely risky to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the mistake runs one way.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it occurs. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. A rushed fill en route to Ashchurch for Tewkesbury with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it takes place. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, the hand just does what it always has.
Next time you fill up in Gretton: preventing petrol in a diesel
- The label is what matters, so check the petrol pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- Many cars state the fuel type inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check it on the first fill in a motor you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key achieves more than any amount of intending to remember, for a house with one of each.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds daft. It works.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Add-on devices are available for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that won't accept a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a safety net at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Less petrol makes a weaker mix, and so stop as soon as you notice — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Gretton?
Then the order of things is short. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Gulf itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it clear of the pump if you ask. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the approximate volume, and whether it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different problem — Gretton has a page just for it.
One petrol in a diesel task in Gretton costs more than another. Why?
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single quote for this would be honest. Which of them you are in is chiefly what moves your cost. The share counts next, meaning how much of that tank is petrol, and then the position of the car and whether reaching it is safe for a van.
What was put in, how much, and if it has run — three questions our engineers ask before costing, not after, for exactly that reason. Given those answers, there is a straight figure instead of a range.
About Gretton
Gretton is a small village in Gloucestershire, situated inland at an elevation of around 88 metres. Gretton lies near the larger city of Gloucester, approximately 13 miles to the south, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Stanley Pontlarge and Greet. Gretton has a population of around 528 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Gretton is located in the South West region of England, about 85 miles west of London.
Fuel drain cover across Gloucestershire, Gretton included
Gretton sits in the GL postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the locations around it as well — Stanley Pontlarge, Gretton Fields and Greet among them. The vehicle does not need to move to us: we drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
Still at the petrol pump around Gretton?
The best place there is, then — that's where you are. Leave it turned off, and ring.