Hawarden: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Until the ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which means the truthful reply to the first Hawarden question — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Keep it that way: leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
Inside the motor: what petrol in a diesel does
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route through a motor. It combusts, and before it combusts it protects. Your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors are designed to extremely fine tolerances, and your diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing against one another.
Of these two tasks, petrol handles the first badly and the second not at all. It is thinner than diesel and strips away the lubrication your fuel system hinges on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is made to resist igniting under compression, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
Put these together and the shape of the issue is plain. Contact does not do the damage — circulation does. Petrol in a tank is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, carried by your fuel, into your injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on the petrol is where a mechanical issue starts.
Four situations our engineers see around Hawarden: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there is. Being at a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept in your tank alone, it's cleared and cleaned right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. With the system primed, your lines and filter already contain petrol that has come from your tank. Drain, flush, deal with the filter: still usually easy.
Those few miles driven were your pump working on fuel weakened by petrol the whole way. The work is your tank, the lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. Short trips, such as the school run to Saughall All Saints Church of England Primary School, are one matter. Driving as far as Chester, under 10 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any distance on the M56, under 10 miles from Hawarden, with your engine running hard the whole time.
Driven on until it complained — rattling, smoke, an uneven idle, a dead throttle. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and the motor is telling you. Pull up where you are — on the verge on A550, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it. A car stopped early very rarely has lasting damage, since the drain and the flush, which still come first, take care of it.
Petrol in a diesel myths Hawarden drivers hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. Nothing comes out when you top up — that tank simply holds more of the same blend. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that advice supposes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. Protection counts more on newer diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through smaller parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that trips up most people than any other. Diesel in a petrol motor normally leaves a motor that won't run: the motorist stops, and so does the harm. While your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened. Being able to run isn't proof of being fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old workaround, meant for another fault. The petrol is still in your tank afterwards, and whatever it has thinned isn't put back.
Once the motor has run, part of that petrol sits in the filter and your lines, not that tank — and the next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't stand up. Clearing petrol into a can at the roadside is also truly risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
It is rarely carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. The petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the error runs one way.
When habit and your car stop matching, it occurs. A motor that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Two cars on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to the nearest station. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Hawarden motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- The label is what matters, so check the pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- Many cars state the fuel type inside your filler flap or on the cap, and so check it on the first fill in a vehicle you don't know.
- 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.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new motor, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol inside the tank means a weaker mix. What to do next doesn't change, though — still do not fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel around Hawarden already?
Then the order of things is brief. Starting it is out, and so is switching on the ignition. Yet at the forecourt, at Asda or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push the car away from the petrol pump. What went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you call 0333 366 0103.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Hawarden page.
Hawarden petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four different jobs, so no single price for this would be fair. What moves your cost is chiefly which of them you're in. After that it's the share — how much petrol got in against how much your tank holds — and after that where the car is and whether our van can reach it safely.
What got in, how much, and whether it has run — three questions our engineers ask before quoting, not after, for precisely that reason. Those answers change a range into a straight figure.
About Hawarden itself
Hawarden is a small village in Flintshire, Wales, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 78 metres, near the English border. Hawarden lies close to the city of Chester, which is approximately 5.6 miles away, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Little Mancot and Big Mancot. Hawarden has a population of around 591 people and predominantly features terraced housing. Hawarden is located in a scenic area, with The Moor nearby.
Across Flintshire and in Hawarden: fuel drain cover
The vans answering petrol in diesel jobs in Hawarden, in the CH postcode area, also work the places around it, Little Mancot, Big Mancot and The Moor among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all locations our engineers work, and the vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
Hawarden: still at the pump?
No position is better: that is where you are. Switched off it remains; then phone.