Petrol in a Diesel Car in Ibstock: How Worried Should You Be?
If it hasn't been started, worry less than you likely are. Until your ignition primes your pump, your starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to that first Ibstock question — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Keep it like that: leave your engine off and ring Petrol in Diesel. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's gone, and how to keep it from happening again: that's the rest of this page.
The engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route through a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure pump and the injectors from wearing down against one another is the diesel passing through them — they're designed to extremely fine tolerances.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and strips out the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where any rattling comes.
Put these together and the shape of the trouble is clear. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. Petrol in the tank is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by the fuel, into the injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical issue begins.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our engineers see in Ibstock
Filled up, not once started. The best case there can be. The petrol is in the tank and just the tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the car sits. This is the one scenario that can only really happen on a forecourt, because anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. With your system primed, the lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from that tank. Drain, flush, deal with the fuel filter: still usually straightforward.
The pump now worked a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that's what driving it meant. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way this work includes your tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit. Driving the children to Ibstock Junior School is one sort of trip. A run as far as Leicester, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M1, under 5 miles from Ibstock, where the motor has been running hard the whole time.
Driven on until it protested — clattering, smoke, an uneven idle, a soft throttle. What you are hearing is the engine signalling fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Stop where you are — on the verge on Harratts Close, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it. Long-term damage is very unusual if a vehicle is pulled over quickly, and the drain and flush-through that still come first sort it out.
Stories Ibstock people hear about petrol in a diesel
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It does not.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. A newer diesel runs its fuel through more precise components at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that fools people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it usually won't run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually will; meanwhile your pump grinds. Running doesn't mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It is an outdated workaround for a different problem. That petrol is still in your tank afterwards, and whatever it has thinned isn't put back.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." After your engine has been run, some of the petrol is no longer inside that tank: it's in the fuel filter and the lines, and it goes straight back through your pump on the next start. Emptying petrol into a can by the roadside is also genuinely risky.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol motor. That is how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
When routine and the vehicle stop matching, it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps laid out differently. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to Polesworth. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Ibstock
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most generally do. Check the pump's label; the colour is only a hint.
- The first fill in a strange car is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state which fuel to use.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key if a home has one of each. So label it.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new motor, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- Add-on devices are available for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that won't take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, so stop as soon as you realise — though remembering that the next step is unchanged. It is still not to start the vehicle.
Ibstock: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is short, then. Starting it is out, and so is turning on the ignition. Still at the forecourt, at BP or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you roll it away from the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, about how much, and if it has been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different issue — Ibstock has a page just for it.
One petrol in a diesel job around Ibstock costs more than another. Why?
There is no fair single quote for this, since the four situations above are four separate tasks. What moves your cost is mostly which of them you are in. Where the car is counts too, and whether a technician can safely reach it, after the proportion of petrol to what the tank takes.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that went in, the quantity, and whether it's run. That's why. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Ibstock itself
Ibstock is a town in north-west Leicestershire, situated approximately 11.7 miles north-west of Leicester. Ibstock sits at an elevation of around 135 metres, in a rural area surrounded by nearby places such as Belchers Bar, Heather, and Battram. Ibstock has a population of around 7338 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Ibstock is located inland, about 97.7 miles north of London.
Ibstock and Leicestershire: where our fuel drain cover runs
The teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Ibstock, in the LE postcode area, equally work the spots near it, Belchers Bar, Heather and Battram among them. The vehicle doesn't need to move to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
Ibstock: still at the petrol pump?
The best place there is, then — that is where you are. Keep it off. Ring.