Hog Hatch: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Far less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Everyone in Hog Hatch begins with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is generally no: petrol resting inside that tank of a diesel stays harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into your fuel system. Leave the engine off and call Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it like that. Below, this page sets out what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you a second time.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Passing through an engine, diesel does two jobs at the same time. It protects to begin with, and only then does it burn. Very fine gaps go into the injectors and the high-pressure pump, and only your diesel running through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
Of these two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second not at all. A pump working on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, since petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the protection 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 rattling starts.
Taken together, they make clear what shape the trouble has. It's circulation that causes the damage, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. Once your pump has been running on that petrol, a mechanical fault has begun: whatever is shed by a pump that is wearing down is carried onward to your injectors with the fuel.
Four scenarios our technicians see in Hog Hatch: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. Just your tank has petrol in it, so the job is emptying the tank and rinsing the fuel system where your car sits. This situation can only really take place on a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or just the ignition on. With the system primed, the lines and filter already hold petrol that came from that tank. Normally nothing more than emptying, rinsing and seeing to the fuel filter, so still easy.
Those few miles driven meant the pump working on fuel thinned by petrol the whole way. Distance is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work includes your tank, the lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. Driving the children to Folly Hill Infant Academy is one sort of trip. Very different a second time: a run to Winchester, under 25 miles away, or any mileage on the M3, under 5 miles from Hog Hatch, where the motor kept working hard.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. What you are hearing is your engine reporting fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Folly Hill, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. What goes first is still the drain and flush, and that sorts it out, with long-term damage very uncommon when a car is pulled over soon.
What Hog Hatch drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine" — a myth. It will not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
Myth: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the opposite. A current diesel runs its fuel through smaller components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so there is no harm" — the myth that catches most people than any other. The driver of a petrol motor fed diesel usually stops, because it will not run, and the damage stops there. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, whilst your pump grinds. Fine and running are not the same thing.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old fix, supposed for another problem. That petrol is still inside the tank afterwards, and what it has diluted is not put back.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, ready to go right back through your pump on your next start. Besides, petrol emptied into a can by the road is genuinely risky.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
Carelessness is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. A diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol car, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and just in that direction.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it happens. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Filling up in a rush on the way to Farnham, with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Passat after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it happens. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and the hand repeats what it has always done.
Hog Hatch drivers: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most usually do. Read the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of cars state the fuel they take.
- Mark the key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It sounds daft and it does the trick: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop at once. A thinner mixture follows from less petrol in your tank, yet the next step stays the same: do not start the car.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Hog Hatch?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. Still on the forecourt, at Shell or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the car clear of the pump. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — the fuel, the rough amount, and if it has run.
Corrosion and deposits are the issue with AdBlue, where petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Hog Hatch page.
What makes one Hog Hatch petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
Four different tasks sit behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single quote. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which situation you are in. Next it's the share — how much petrol was put in against how much the tank holds — and after that where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. With the answers, you get a straight figure rather than a range.
About Hog Hatch
Hog Hatch is a village in Surrey, situated on the riverside with a mix of rural and residential areas. Hog Hatch has a population of around 1624 people and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Hog Hatch is located near several other small villages, including Upper Hale, Heath End, and Ewshot, and is about 35 miles from London. Hog Hatch sits at an elevation of 162 metres, providing scenic views of the surrounding countryside.
Fuel drain cover across Surrey, Hog Hatch included
Petrol in diesel calls around Hog Hatch — part of the GU postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the locations about it, Upper Hale, Heath End and Ewshot included. The car does not need to move to us: our technicians drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
Still at the pump around Hog Hatch?
Nothing beats it: that is where you are. Call, and keep it switched off.