How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Hazlerigg
Not started? Then less anxious than you probably are. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor till something draws it through the fuel system — your ignition priming your pump, your starter, or driving itself. So the honest answer to the first query everyone in Hazlerigg asks, "have I ruined it?", is generally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with the engine left off, so it stays that way. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
On its way through an engine, diesel does two tasks. Before it burns, it lubricates — then it combusts. Very fine tolerances go into the injectors and your high-pressure pump, and just your diesel running through keeps those surfaces from grinding together.
Of those two tasks, petrol manages the first poorly and the second never. It's thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system depends on, and so a pump running on a petrol mixture 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's where the knocking comes from.
Taken together, they show what shape the trouble has. Not contact but circulation is what causes the damage. Petrol in the tank is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into the injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical issue starts.
Four situations we see in Hazlerigg: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, never started. The best case there is. That petrol is inside your tank and only that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one scenario that can only really take place at a forecourt, since anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or just the ignition on. Once primed, your system has drawn petrol from your tank as far as the filter and the fuel lines. Usually little more than clearing, rinsing and sorting the fuel filter, and so still simple.
Your pump now worked a few miles on weakened fuel — that is what driving the vehicle meant. Miles is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way this work runs to that tank, your lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. Short trips, such as the school run to Hazlewood Community Primary School, are one thing. Driving as far as Newcastle upon Tyne, under 5 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any mileage on the A167(M), under 5 miles from Hazlerigg, with the engine running hard the whole time.
Driven until it complained. Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The engine is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Windt Street, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are and leave it. What goes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that sorts it out, with permanent damage very uncommon if a car is stopped early.
Hazlerigg people and that petrol in a diesel stories they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." A bigger tank of the same mixture is all you get, since topping up takes out nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that guidance assumes.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through more precise parts: that is how a modern diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication matters for more, not less.
The myth that catches people out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally won't run, and so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually will; meanwhile the pump grinds. Fine and running are not the same thing.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It's an outdated fix for a distinct issue. The petrol is still in that tank after that, and what it has thinned isn't put back.
Myth: "Drain the tank yourself and you are sorted." Once your engine has run, some of the petrol is no longer inside your tank: it is in the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and it goes right back through the pump on your next start. On top of that, petrol emptied into a can by the road is genuinely hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. A diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol motor, yet the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake simple, and only in that direction.
Habit and your car getting out of step is when it takes place. A car that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps laid out differently. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Cramlington. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel BMW 3 Series in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Your hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Hazlerigg motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a hint.
- Plenty of cars state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check it on your first fill in any car you don't know.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on your diesel's key if a home has one of each. So label it.
- It seems daft and it works: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- Add-on devices exist for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A thinner blend follows from less petrol inside your tank, yet your next stage remains the same: do not crank it.
Hazlerigg: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is short. Do not fire it up, and don't turn your ignition on. The attendants on the forecourt — whether at Asda Express itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it clear of the pump if you ask. What was put in, roughly how much, and whether it's run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a separate problem — Hazlerigg has a page just for it.
What makes one Hazlerigg petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
The four scenarios above are four different tasks, so no single price for this would be honest. Chiefly, your cost moves with which situation you are in. Where the vehicle is counts too, and whether a van can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what the tank holds.
Three questions come first, before any quote, rather than after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Hazlerigg
Hazlerigg is a village in Tyne and Wear, situated inland at an elevation of around 70 metres, approximately 4.5 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne. Hazlerigg is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is located near other settlements such as Brunswick Village and Wideopen. Hazlerigg has a population of around 2104 people and is part of the wider North East region. Hazlerigg is some 252 miles north of London, making it a relatively distant suburb of the Newcastle upon Tyne urban area.
Fuel drain cover around Hazlerigg and across Tyne and Wear
Brunswick Village, Wideopen and North Brunton are among the locations around Hazlerigg that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Hazlerigg's NE postcode area. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places we work, and the vehicle does not need to come to us.
Hazlerigg: still at the petrol pump?
Then you're in the best spot there is. Keep it off. Ring.