Petrol in a Diesel Car in Heyheads: How Worried Should You Be?
If it has not been started, worry less than you likely are. Everyone in Heyheads starts with "have I wrecked it?", and the fair answer is normally no: petrol resting inside that tank of any diesel remains harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into the fuel system. Leave your motor off and call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The rest of this page explains what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. Before it ignites, it lubricates — then it burns. The high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors are made to extremely fine gaps, and your diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing against each other.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where any knocking starts.
Together, those leave the shape of the trouble clear. It is movement that causes the harm, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors downstream.
Four situations our technicians see in Heyheads: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, not once started. The best case there can be. The petrol is inside your tank and only your tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one situation that can only truly happen at a forecourt, because anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
The ignition turned on, or a short start. Petrol has come out of the tank and got to your filter and your lines, because the fuel system has been primed. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still usually simple.
Your pump now spent a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that is what driving the vehicle meant. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the entire circuit: that is the work, and the way the vehicle was driven counts as much as the mileage. On the school run to Buckton Vale Primary School, the mileage is short. Very different again: a run to Manchester, under 10 miles away, or some mileage on the M67, under 5 miles from Heyheads, where the motor never stopped working hard.
Clattering, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Castle Lane, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. Long-term damage is very rare if a car is stopped soon, and the drain and flush-through that still come first deal with it.
Stories Heyheads people hear about petrol in a diesel
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mix. The idea behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Lubrication matters more on current diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through finer parts at higher pressure.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor usually leaves a motor that won't run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile your pump wears. Running is not the same as fine.
An outdated fix for a different issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." None of what petrol thinned is put back by it — and afterwards, the tank still contains the petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, waiting to go straight back through your pump at the next start. It's also genuinely hazardous to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it happen?
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two and slips 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 error runs one way.
Habit and the car getting out of step is when it takes place. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. Racing for a train at Mossley (Manchester) and fuelling up en route. Exactly the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Your hand repeats what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Heyheads
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Plenty of motors state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, and so check it on your 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 meaning to remember, in a home with one of each.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems daft and it works.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make whilst your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the rest. Treat it as a backstop, and keep checking the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A thinner blend follows from less petrol inside the tank, yet your next stage stays the same: do not fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Heyheads?
Then the order of things is short. Don't fire it up, and do not turn the ignition on. Ask the staff to help you roll it clear of the pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that's Texaco or anywhere else. Ring 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — your fuel, the rough amount, and whether it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate fault — Heyheads has a page just for it.
One petrol in a diesel task in Heyheads costs more than another. Why?
A fair single quote does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. What shifts the cost is mostly which of them you are in. 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 questions before pricing rather than after: what went in, how much, and if it's run. A range becomes a straight figure when the replies are in.
About Heyheads and its setting
Heyheads is a locality in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside with nearby settlements including Carrbrook, Micklehurst, and Buckton Vale. Heyheads has a population of around 1718 people and is characterized by semi-detached housing. Heyheads sits at an elevation of 196 metres, approximately 9.3 miles from Manchester and 159.7 miles from London.
Across Greater Manchester and in Heyheads: fuel drain cover
Our vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs in Heyheads, in the SK postcode area, equally work the spots near it, Carrbrook, Micklehurst and Buckton Vale among them. No need to move the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all spots where we work.
In Heyheads and still at the pump?
The best place there is, then — that is where you are. Phone, and keep it switched off.