Petrol in a Diesel Car in Ilchester: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you already are — as long as no one has started it. Till your ignition primes the pump, your starter cranks, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to the first Ilchester query — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. Keep it that way: leave your motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel. Below, you will find what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you a second time.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route round a motor. It protects to begin with, and after that does it burn. Made to extremely fine tolerances, the fuel injectors and your pump rely on the diesel moving through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Of these two jobs, petrol manages the first poorly and the second not at all. 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 away the protection the system hinges on, and any pump running on such a blend is wearing itself.
Combined, those leave the shape of the trouble plain. Not contact but movement is what does the damage. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into the fuel injectors further along, which is why a pump that has worked on that petrol is where a mechanical fault begins.
Four scenarios our engineers see around Ilchester: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there is. The petrol is in that tank and just the tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the vehicle stands. This is the one scenario that can only really occur on a forecourt, because anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Petrol has left that tank and got to the filter and the lines, because your system has been primed. Still normally easy: drain, flush, and the fuel filter sorted.
The pump now spent a couple of miles on thinned fuel — that's what driving it does. Distance is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way this work runs to the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Driving the children to Ilchester Community School is one kind of trip. Any distance on the M5, under 25 miles from Ilchester, means your engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Wells, under 15 miles away, is a very different job as well.
Driven till it protested. Knocking, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is your engine reporting fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Market Place. A vehicle stopped quickly very seldom has long-term damage, as the fuel drain and the flush-through, which still go first, deal with it.
Ilchester people and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank just holds more of the same mixture. The idea behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. Lubrication counts more on modern diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through finer parts at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, idles and pulls away like nothing happened — all while its pump wears. Being able to run isn't the same as being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a separate issue. The petrol is still inside your tank after that, and what it has diluted isn't put back.
If your engine has been run, part of the petrol sits in the filter and the fuel lines, not that tank — and the next start sends it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you are sorted" does not hold. It's also really risky to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. A diesel nozzle generally won't fit a petrol car, but the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and just in that direction.
The moment routine stops matching the car is the moment it takes place. A motor that is new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Yeovil Pen Mill with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Passat after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it takes place. With rain, a call arriving, or a car full of children to deal with, your hand just does what it always has.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Ilchester
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- In a car you do not know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: plenty of vehicles print the fuel type there.
- One of each in the house? Label your key to the diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — since intending to remember isn't enough.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you lift the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make while your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, so stop as soon as you notice — though remembering that your next step is unchanged. It is still not to start it.
Put petrol in a diesel around Ilchester already?
Then, there is just a short order of things. Don't start the vehicle, and do not switch your ignition on. Ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that's Texaco or anywhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, about how much, and if it's been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different issue — Ilchester has a page all for it.
What makes one Ilchester petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
There's no honest single quote for this, since the four situations above are four different tasks. The situation itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Beyond that it is the proportion — how much petrol went in against how much the tank holds — and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: your fuel that was put in, the amount, and if it has run. That is why. Those replies are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Ilchester and where it is
Ilchester is a village situated on the River Yeo in Somerset, with a low elevation of around 15 metres above sea level. Ilchester lies near the towns of Yeovil and Wells, and is close to the nearby places of Northover, Ilchester Mead, and Limington. Ilchester has a population of approximately 1164 people, and its housing stock is predominantly made up of terraced homes. Ilchester is located in the South West region of England, around 115.9 miles west of London.
Ilchester and Somerset: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Northover, Ilchester Mead and Limington are among the places around Ilchester that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Ilchester's BA postcode area. 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.
Ilchester: still at the petrol pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better place. Turned off it remains; then call.