Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Jordon
Far less than you likely are, provided it has not been started. Till the ignition primes your pump, the starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which means the honest reply to that first Jordon query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with the engine kept off, so it stays that way. Further down, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it may have got, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
On its way through an engine, diesel does two jobs. It burns, and before it burns it lubricates. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from wearing down against each other is the diesel flowing through them — they are designed to extremely fine gaps.
Of these two jobs, petrol handles the first poorly and the second not at all. A pump working on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the lubrication your fuel system depends on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that's where any clattering starts.
Together, those make the shape of the trouble clear. Contact does not do the harm — movement does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Jordon, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to serious
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. On a forecourt, and really only there, the petrol is still limited to the tank — since everywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The task is draining and cleaning on the spot.
Your ignition switched on, or a brief start. The system has been primed, so petrol has left your tank and reached your filter and your lines. That is normally still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
The pump has worked a few miles on thinned fuel — that's what driving the vehicle meant. The work is your tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire system, and how hard your car was driven counts as much as how far. Driving the children to Meadow View Primary School is one kind of trip. A run as far as Sheffield, under 5 miles away, is a very different job. So is any distance on the M1, under a mile from Jordon, where your engine has been labouring hard the whole time.
Driven until it protested. Rattling, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is your motor signalling fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Oakdale Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. What goes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that sorts it out, with long-term damage very rare if a vehicle is pulled over soon.
Jordon people and the 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 will be." Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. That guidance presumes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A modern diesel sends its fuel through smaller components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that fools people. The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel normally stops, because it will not run, and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, whilst the pump wears. Running does not mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a different problem. It does not put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still inside the tank later on.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." Once the engine has run, some of the petrol is no longer inside the tank: it is in the filter and the fuel lines, and it goes straight back through the pump at the next start. It's also genuinely hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Why petrol in a diesel takes place at all
Nobody does it on purpose, and it is seldom carelessness. One way only, because of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle. That is how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
The moment habit stops matching the vehicle is the moment it happens. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that is brand new. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A hurried fill on the way to Meadowhall with a train to catch. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, the hand just does what it has always done.
Jordon motorists: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Read the petrol pump's label; the colour is only a clue.
- Plenty of vehicles state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check there on the first fill in a car you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key achieves more than any amount of intending to remember, for a home with one of each.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump. It sounds silly and it works.
- Whilst you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck your phone away.
- Some diesels have a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Less petrol means a thinner blend, and so stop the moment you notice — while remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It is still not to crank it.
Jordon: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Don't start it, and do not switch your ignition on. Still at the forecourt, at JET or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle away from the pump. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, about how much, and if it has run.
Corrosion and deposits form the trouble with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Jordon page.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Jordon costs more than another
There is no honest single price for this, since the four situations above are four separate jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what shifts your cost. Where the car is counts too, and whether a van can safely get to it, after the proportion of petrol to what that tank takes.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that went in, the volume, and whether it's run. That's why. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Jordon, for a moment
Jordon is a locality in South Yorkshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 58 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Jordon lies close to the city of Sheffield, approximately 4.4 miles away, and is near other places such as Jordan and Richmond Park. Jordon is part of the larger urban area surrounding Sheffield, with the city's amenities and services within easy reach. Jordon has a population of around 2177 people, according to approximate estimates.
Fuel drain cover in Jordon and across South Yorkshire
Petrol in diesel call-outs around Jordon — part of the S postcode area — go to vans that likewise cover the spots around it, Jordan, Richmond Park and Bradgate among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places our technicians work, and your car does not need to come to us.
Jordon: still at the pump?
No position is better: that is where you are. Switched off it stays; then phone.