Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Harbour Village
If it has not been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Until your ignition primes the pump, the starter cranks, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just rests there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to the first Harbour Village query — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. To keep the car like that, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave the engine switched off. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it has gone, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that's the rest of this page.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel does
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two jobs at once. Before it combusts, it protects — and then it burns. Very fine gaps are built into the fuel injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only your diesel flowing through stops those surfaces grinding together.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the lubrication a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on that mixture to wear itself. It is equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the rattling.
Combined, those leave the shape of the trouble plain. It is movement that does the harm, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the injectors downstream.
Harbour Village, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to serious
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. The petrol is in that tank and just your tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one situation that can only truly take place at a forecourt, because anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition switched on, or a brief start. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from that tank. Usually nothing more than clearing, purging and seeing to the filter, and so still easy.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent those miles running on thinned fuel. Distance is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way this work includes the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Driving the kids to the local primary school is one kind of trip. Getting as far as St Davids, under 15 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any mileage on the M4, under 50 miles from Harbour Village, with the motor working hard all the way.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and the motor is saying so. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on New Hill, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the car where it is. A vehicle pulled over quickly very seldom has permanent damage, because the fuel drain and the flush-through, which still go first, sort it out.
What Harbour Village motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Nothing is removed when you top up — the tank just holds more of the same mixture. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance presumes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. Protection counts more on current diesels, not less, because their fuel passes through more precise components at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." Diesel in a petrol motor normally means a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the damage. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump grinds. Running isn't the same as fine.
An outdated workaround for a different issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." The petrol is still inside the tank afterwards, and what it has thinned is not put back.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, waiting 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.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs at all
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the slip runs one way.
When habit and the vehicle stop matching, it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and motors that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Fuelling up in a rush en route to Fishguard & Goodwick, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Passat, its first fuelling, and a driver accustomed to petrol: precisely when it happens. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Harbour Village motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Plenty of cars state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on your first fill in a motor you do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does 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 seems silly. It does the trick.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck the phone away.
- Add-on devices exist for motors without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not accept a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol in that tank makes a weaker mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still don't fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Harbour Village?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition off as well. If you are still on the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what went in, about how much, and if it has been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different fault — Harbour Village has a page just for it.
Harbour Village petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
A fair single quote does not exist here: four situations, four separate jobs. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts your cost. Beyond that it is the share — how much petrol went in against how much your tank holds — and then where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely.
What got in, how much, and if it has run — three queries we ask before costing, not after, for exactly that reason. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Harbour Village
Harbour Village is a coastal locality in Pembrokeshire, situated near the towns of Goodwick and St Davids. Harbour Village sits at an elevation of 97 metres, overlooking the coastline of Wales. Harbour Village is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is home to a population of around 953 people.
Harbour Village and Pembrokeshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Goodwick, Stop-and-Call and Cilau are among the places around Harbour Village that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Harbour Village's SA postcode area. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all locations we work, and the vehicle does not need to move to us.
At the pump in Harbour Village, right now?
The best spot there is, then — that's where you are. Phone, and keep it turned off.