How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Honeywood Mews
Not started? Then less worried than you likely feel. Until the ignition primes the pump, your starter cranks, or the vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does nothing. Which means the truthful reply to the first Honeywood Mews query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Leave the engine off and call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it like that. The rest of this page explains what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you again.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Diesel has two tasks on its way through a motor. Before it ignites, it lubricates — then it combusts. Very fine tolerances are built into your injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only your diesel flowing through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Petrol handles the first task badly and the second not at all. A pump working on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the protection the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where any clattering comes.
Together, those make the shape of the problem plain. Not contact but circulation is what causes the damage. Where that petrol is only inside the tank, it's a fault of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors downstream.
Four situations our technicians see in Honeywood Mews: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled but not once started — as good as it gets. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, the petrol is still confined to that tank — since everywhere else the vehicle was driven to reach it. The job is draining and cleaning on the spot.
A moment's running, or merely the ignition on. Once primed, the fuel system has pulled petrol out of your tank as far as your filter and your lines. Drain, flush, see to the filter: still usually simple.
Driven a few miles. Now your pump has spent those miles running on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the whole system: that's this work, and the way the car was driven matters as much as the miles. Short trips, such as the school run to Woodcroft Primary, are one thing. Very different again: a trip to Portsmouth, under 10 miles away, or some distance on the A3(M), under 3 miles from Honeywood Mews, where the engine never stopped running hard.
Knocking, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and the motor is telling you. Whether it is the verge on Alder Grove, a lay-by or a side road, stop there then leave it. Lasting damage is very rare if a vehicle is stopped soon, and the fuel drain and flush-through that still come first take care of it.
Petrol in a diesel stories Honeywood Mews people hear
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mix. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
Not so: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the opposite. A modern diesel sends its fuel through finer components at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so no harm done" — the myth that trips up more motorists than any other. Any petrol motor fed diesel usually will not run, and so the driver stops and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump wears. 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 separate issue. The petrol is still in your tank afterwards, and what it has weakened isn't put back.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump out of your lines and the fuel filter, where some of that ends up after the motor has been run. That is why a DIY tank drain does not sort it — a myth. Besides, petrol drained into a can by the road is truly dangerous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
It is rarely carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. A diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol vehicle, yet the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake simple, and just in one direction.
Routine and the car falling out of step is how it happens. Any vehicle that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Two cars on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Racing for a train at Rowlands Castle and filling up en route. Precisely the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Next time you fill up in Honeywood Mews: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- In a car you don't know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before your first fill: plenty of motors print the fuel there.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember, for a home with one of each.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds silly. It works.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol in your tank makes a thinner mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still do not fire it up.
Honeywood Mews: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is brief, then. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition off as well. If you're still on the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and if it has run.
Corrosion and deposits form the issue with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Honeywood Mews page.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Honeywood Mews costs more than another
The four situations above are four different jobs, so no single price for this would be fair. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which situation you are in. The share matters next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, and then the position of your car and whether getting to it is safe for a van.
What went in, how much, and if it has run — three questions our engineers ask before pricing, not after, for exactly that reason. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Honeywood Mews and where it is
Honeywood Mews is a locality in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 60 metres, approximately 8 miles north of Portsmouth. Honeywood Mews is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Honeywood Mews is close to nearby places such as Lovedean, Wecock, and Eastland Gate, and is about 57 miles south-west of London.
Fuel drain cover around Honeywood Mews and across Hampshire
Lovedean, Wecock and Eastland Gate are among the places around Honeywood Mews that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Honeywood Mews's PO postcode area. You need not bring your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all spots where we work.
Honeywood Mews: still at the petrol pump?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Ring, and leave it turned off.