Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Hillhead
Less than you probably are, provided it has not been started. Everyone around Hillhead begins with "have I ruined it?", and the honest answer is generally no: petrol left inside that tank of any diesel stays harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into the fuel system. To leave the vehicle like that, call Petrol in Diesel then leave your motor switched off. Below, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it might have got, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two things at the same time. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. What keeps the surfaces inside the high-pressure pump and your injectors from wearing down against one another is the diesel flowing through them — they are made to very fine tolerances.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump on that mixture wearing itself. It's equally made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the rattling.
Seen together, they show the shape the problem takes. Contact doesn't do the harm — circulation does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors further on.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our technicians see around Hillhead
Filled up, and never started: nothing beats it. The petrol is inside that tank and just your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one situation that can only really happen at a forecourt, because anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Once primed, your system has drawn petrol from the tank up to the fuel filter and the lines. Drain, flush, see to the filter: still usually easy.
Those few miles on the road were the pump running on fuel thinned by petrol throughout. Miles is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work includes that tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole system. On the school run to the local primary school, the distance is small. Getting as far as Glasgow, under 25 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any mileage on the M77, under 3 miles from Hillhead, with your engine labouring hard the whole time.
Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and your motor is telling you. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Cuthbert Place, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it there. Long-term damage is very rare if a car is stopped quickly, and the drain and flush that still come first take care of it.
What Hillhead drivers 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 by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. The idea behind the guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller components: that's how a current diesel moves its fuel, and so the protection matters for more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that catches most motorists than any other. The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the damage stops there. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, while your pump grinds. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It was an old workaround, supposed for another issue. The petrol is still inside that tank afterwards, and whatever it has diluted isn't put back.
Once your engine has been run, part of the petrol sits in the filter and the lines, not the tank — and the next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. Draining petrol into a can at the kerbside is also really dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
Carelessness is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the error runs one way.
Habit and the car getting out of step is how it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Kilmarnock. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist used to petrol: exactly when it occurs. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Next time you fill up in Hillhead: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Check the pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- Inspect the filler flap. Plenty of cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any car you do not know.
- Mark your key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It sounds silly and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the rest. Count it as a safety net, then keep reading the petrol pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol inside your tank means a weaker mixture. What to do next doesn't change, though — still do not crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Hillhead already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. If you are still at the forecourt — Morrisons or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push it clear of the pump. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run.
If it was AdBlue rather than petrol, say so. That's a separate fault — corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection — and it has its own page for Hillhead.
Hillhead petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
Four different tasks sit behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single quote. Which of them you're in is mostly what shifts your cost. The share counts next, meaning how much of that tank is petrol, followed by the location of the car and whether reaching it is safe for a van.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three queries: the fuel that got in, its amount, and if it has run. That's why. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Hillhead and where it is
Hillhead is a suburban area situated on the lakeside in East Ayrshire, with a relatively low elevation of 53 metres. Hillhead lies near several smaller communities, including Longpark, Beansburn, and Knockinlaw, and is located approximately 19.8 miles from Glasgow. Hillhead has a population of around 3702 people, predominantly residing in flat-type housing. Hillhead is also relatively distant from major English cities, being around 335.6 miles from London.
Hillhead and East Ayrshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
The teams answering petrol in diesel jobs around Hillhead, in the KA postcode area, equally work the locations near it, Longpark, Beansburn and Knockinlaw among them. No need to bring your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all places we drain.
Hillhead: still at the petrol pump?
Then you are in the best position there can be. Keep it off. Call.