Petrol in a Diesel Car in Hickling: How Worried Should You Be?
Less than you likely are, provided it has not been started. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor till something pulls it through the fuel system — your ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the truthful answer to the first question everyone in Hickling asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. Leave your motor off and phone Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two things at the same time. It burns, and before it ignites it lubricates. Your high-pressure pump and your injectors are designed to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from grinding against each other.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. The clattering comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection your system hinges on, and any pump running on that mixture is wearing itself.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. Not contact but circulation is what does the harm. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, borne by your fuel, into the fuel injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical problem starts.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our technicians see in Hickling
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there is. Only your tank has petrol in it, and so the job is clearing the tank and rinsing the system where your car stands. This scenario can only really occur at a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and your lines, because the system has been bled. That's usually still a simple job — a drain, a flush, and your filter dealt with.
Driven a few miles. Now your pump has spent these miles working on weakened fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far, and this work takes in that tank, your lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. Short trips, such as the school run to Hickling CofE Infants Academy, are one thing. Any miles on the M11, over 50 miles from Hickling, means your engine working hard throughout, and a run to Norwich, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task as well.
Driven until it complained. Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is the engine signalling fuel that no longer acts like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Brightmere Road, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it where it is. A vehicle pulled over early very seldom has long-term damage, because the fuel drain and the flush, which still come first, take care of it.
Hickling motorists and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mix. The assumption behind the guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Modern diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller components: that is how a current diesel handles its fuel, and so the lubrication matters more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up more drivers than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it normally won't run, so the driver stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, whilst the pump grinds. Running is not the same as fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct problem. None of what petrol weakened gets put back by it — and later, the tank still contains the petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, ready to go straight back through the pump on your next start. Emptying petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
It's rarely carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the slip runs one way.
It occurs when routine and your car stop matching. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Filling up in a rush on the way to Worstead, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. The hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Hickling motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- In a motor you don't know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before the first fill: plenty of vehicles print the fuel there.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key if a household has one of each. So mark it.
- Before the nozzle comes off the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" aloud. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the remainder. Count it as a backstop, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol in your tank means a weaker mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still don't start the car.
Hickling: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is brief, then. Don't start the vehicle, and do not switch your ignition on. Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the pump if you are still at the forecourt, whether that is Gulf or anywhere else. 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 fault — Hickling has a page just for it.
What makes one Hickling petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
A fair single price doesn't exist here: four scenarios, four separate tasks. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts the cost. Where the vehicle is counts too, and whether a van can safely get to it, after the share of petrol to what the tank holds.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three questions: your fuel that got in, its amount, and whether it has run. That is why. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Hickling itself
Hickling is a small village in Norfolk, situated inland near the Norfolk Broads. Hickling sits at a low elevation of around 3 metres, and is located approximately 14.5 miles from Norwich. Hickling has a population of around 603 people, and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Hickling is also close to nearby places such as Hickling Green and Hickling Heath.
Fuel drain cover around Hickling and across Norfolk
Our vans answering petrol in diesel calls around Hickling, in the NR postcode area, equally work the locations near it, Hickling Green, Hickling Heath and Calthorpe Street included. You need not bring your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all locations we drain.
Hickling: still at the pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better position. Switched off it stays; then call.