Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Jordanhill
Less than you probably are, provided it hasn't been started. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor until something pulls it through the fuel system — the ignition priming your pump, your starter, or driving on its own. So the fair answer to the first question anyone in Jordanhill asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. To leave the car like that, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you don't do it again.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey through a motor. Before it burns, it protects — then it combusts. Made to extremely fine tolerances, the injectors and your pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does badly. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, since petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication your fuel system relies on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that is where the knocking starts.
Combined, those leave the shape of the problem plain. It is circulation that causes the harm, not contact. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. The start of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Petrol in a diesel in Jordanhill: how serious is it? Four situations
Fuelled but never started — the best it gets. At a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still confined to the tank — since everywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The job is emptying and purging on the spot.
Started for a second, or only your ignition on. With your system primed, the fuel lines and filter now contain petrol that came from your tank. Still normally simple: drain, flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent these miles working on weakened fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the whole circuit: that is the work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the miles. On the school run to the local primary school, the distance is small. A run as far as Glasgow, under 5 miles away, is a very different job. So is any miles on the M8, under 3 miles from Jordanhill, where the motor has been working hard throughout.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Leave it where it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Southbrae Gardens. Long-term damage is very rare when a vehicle is stopped quickly, and the drain and flush-through that still come first deal with it.
Myths Jordanhill 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. A bigger tank of the same mixture is all you get, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that advice assumes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the reverse. At higher pressure, through smaller components: that is how a newer diesel handles its fuel, so the lubrication counts more, not less.
This is the one that fools drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor usually means a motor that won't run: the motorist stops, and so does the harm. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally fires up, idles and drives away like nothing happened — all the while its pump wears. Running doesn't mean fine.
An old fix for a different fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." What petrol has weakened remains thinned, and the petrol remains in your tank regardless.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you're 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 fuel lines, and it goes straight back through your pump at the next start. It is also really risky to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. One way only, because of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol vehicle. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
Routine and your car falling out of step is when it happens. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to the nearest station. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Renault Clio for the first time. The hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Next time you fill up in Jordanhill: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — yet not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Inspect your filler flap. Many motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a motor you do not know.
- One of each in the house? Label the key to the diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — since intending to remember isn't enough.
- It seems silly and it works: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the remainder. Count it as a safety net, and keep reading the pump.
- Less petrol means a weaker mixture, and so stop the moment you notice — while remembering that the next stage is unchanged. It is still not to fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Jordanhill?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on the ignition. The attendants on the forecourt — whether at BP itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it away from the pump if you ask. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — the fuel, the rough quantity, and whether it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate fault — Jordanhill has a page just for it.
What makes one Jordanhill petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
A fair single quote does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. What moves the cost is mostly which of them you're in. The proportion counts next, meaning how much of that tank is petrol, and then the position of the car and whether reaching it is safe for a van.
What went in, how much, and if it's run — three questions we ask before costing, not after, for exactly that reason. With those answers, you get a straight figure rather than a range.
About Jordanhill, for a moment
Jordanhill is a suburban area in Glasgow City, situated approximately 4.2 miles west of Glasgow's city centre. Jordanhill sits at an elevation of 21 metres, near the River Kelvin, and is surrounded by other suburban areas such as Scotstoun and Whiteinch. Jordanhill has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterized by terraced housing. Jordanhill is also relatively close to Anniesland, another nearby suburban area.
Fuel drain cover across Glasgow City, Jordanhill included
Petrol in diesel jobs in Jordanhill — part of the G postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the spots round it, Scotstoun, Whiteinch and Anniesland among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all places our technicians work, and your vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
At the pump in Jordanhill, right now?
In that case, you could not be in a better position. Keep the vehicle turned off, and ring.