Gunsgreen: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Far less than you probably are, if it hasn't been started. Everyone around Gunsgreen begins with "have I wrecked it?", and the fair answer is normally no: petrol resting inside the tank of any diesel stays harmless until priming, cranking or driving draws it into the system. Keep it like that: leave your motor off and ring Petrol in Diesel. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you don't do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It lubricates first, and only then does it burn. Extremely fine gaps are built into the fuel injectors and your high-pressure pump, and just your diesel flowing through stops those surfaces grinding together.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. A pump working on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where any clattering comes.
Seen together, they show the shape the issue has. Contact doesn't do the harm — movement does. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into your injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical issue begins.
Gunsgreen, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to serious
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. At a forecourt, and genuinely only there, the petrol is still limited to that tank — because anywhere else the vehicle was driven to reach it. The task is draining and rinsing on the spot.
The ignition switched on, or a brief start. Petrol has left that tank and reached the filter and your lines, since your system has been primed. That's usually still an easy task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Your pump has spent a couple of miles on weakened fuel — that is what driving the car does. The work is your tank, the fuel lines, your filter and clean fuel through the whole system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. Driving the children to the local primary school is one sort of trip. Any mileage on the M8, under 50 miles from Gunsgreen, means the engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Edinburgh, under 50 miles away, is a very different job too.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. What you are hearing is your motor reporting fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Broad Street, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. A car stopped early very seldom has long-term damage, as the fuel drain and the flush, which still come first, take care of it.
Myths Gunsgreen drivers hear about petrol in a diesel
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. A newer diesel sends its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." This is the one that catches motorists. The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the harm stops there. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile the pump grinds. Fine and running are not the same at all.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still inside your tank later.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." Once your engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer in the tank: it's in the fuel filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through your pump at your next start. And, a can of petrol drained at the kerbside is truly hazardous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
It's seldom carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. One way only, because of the nozzles: the slimmer petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle. That is how the forecourt makes it easy.
When habit and the vehicle stop matching, it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that's brand new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. A hurried fill on the way to Reston with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Your hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Gunsgreen
- The label is what counts, and so check the petrol pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt.
- Plenty of cars state the fuel type inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check it on the first fill in any car you do not know.
- One of each in the home? Label your key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because meaning to remember isn't enough.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so tuck the phone away and keep your mind on the pump.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol inside the tank makes a thinner blend. What to do next does not change, though — still don't start it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Gunsgreen? Begin here
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Never start it, and do not switch your ignition on. If you're still on the forecourt — Scotish Fuels or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and whether it's run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it is a different issue, with its own page for Gunsgreen, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Gunsgreen costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be honest. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Where the vehicle is matters too, and whether a technician can safely reach it, after the ratio of petrol to what the tank holds.
That's why our engineers ask three queries before quoting rather than after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. A range turns into a straight figure when those replies are in.
About Gunsgreen itself
Gunsgreen is a small suburban area situated on the coast of the Scottish Borders, with a mix of semi-detached housing and a population of around 1899 residents. Gunsgreen sits at an elevation of 25 metres, looking out to the sea and located near the towns of Eyemouth and Burnmouth. Gunsgreen is close to historic sites such as Ayton Castle and is within commuting distance of Edinburgh, which is 43 miles away. Gunsgreen remains a residential community with a strong sense of local identity.
Fuel drain cover across Scottish Borders, Gunsgreen included
The vans answering petrol in diesel calls in Gunsgreen, in the TD postcode area, also work the places near it, Eyemouth, Burnmouth and Ayton Castle included. We drain where the vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
At the petrol pump around Gunsgreen, still?
Then you're in the best spot there can be. Turned off it stays; then call.