How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Keele
Unstarted? Then less anxious than you likely are. Until the ignition primes the pump, your starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does no harm. Which means the truthful reply to the first Keele query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To leave it like that, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's travelled, and how to stop it from happening again: that is the remainder of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two things at once. Before it burns, it protects — then it ignites. Very fine tolerances go into your injectors and the high-pressure pump, and just the diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Of these two tasks, petrol handles the first poorly and the second never. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier 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 wants from its fuel — and that is where the clattering starts.
Put those together and the shape of the issue is clear. Not contact but movement is what does the damage. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. After the pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical issue has begun: whatever is shed by a pump that's grinding is carried downstream to the injectors with your fuel.
Petrol in a diesel in Keele: how bad is it? Four situations
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. The petrol is inside that tank and just your tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one situation that can only really occur on a forecourt, as anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a second. Once primed, the fuel system has drawn petrol out of the tank as far as the fuel filter and the fuel lines. That is usually still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and the filter dealt with.
Driven a few miles. Now your pump has spent these miles working on diluted fuel. Distance is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work includes the tank, the lines, your filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Short trips, such as the school run to St John's CofE Primary Academy, are one matter. Driving as far as Stoke-on-Trent, under 5 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any distance on the M6, under a mile from Keele, with the motor labouring hard the whole time.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and your engine is telling you. Pull up where you are — on the verge on Quarry Bank Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. A car pulled over quickly very seldom has permanent damage, since the fuel drain and the flush, which still come first, deal with it.
What Keele motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mixture. That advice presumes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It does not.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that's how a current diesel moves its fuel, and so the protection matters more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so no harm done" — the myth that catches most motorists than any other. Diesel in a petrol motor usually leaves a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally fires up, ticks over and drives away like nothing happened — all while its pump is wearing. Running doesn't mean fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old fix, meant for another problem. That petrol is still in that tank afterwards, and whatever it has weakened is not put back.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol lies in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go right back through the pump on the next start. Also, a can of petrol filled at the roadside is genuinely hazardous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol car. That is how the forecourt makes it easy.
When habit and your car stop matching, it happens. A motor that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Two motors on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Fuelling up in a hurry en route to Longport, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a driver used to petrol: exactly when it occurs. The hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Keele motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- Check your filler flap. Many vehicles state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any motor you don't know.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key when a household has one of each. So mark it.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a backstop, and keep checking the pump.
- Spotting it mid-fill? Stop at once. A thinner blend results from less petrol inside the tank, but your next step remains the same: do not fire it up.
Petrol already in a diesel around Keele? Start here
The order of things is brief, then. Never fire it up, and don't turn the ignition on. Ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that is Shell or somewhere else. What got in, roughly how much, and if it's run: tell us those when you call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different fault — Keele has a page all for it.
One petrol in a diesel task around Keele costs more than another. Why?
The four scenarios above are four different jobs, so no single quote for this would be fair. Mostly, your cost shifts with which one you are in. Where the vehicle is matters too, and whether a technician can safely reach it, after the proportion of petrol to what that tank takes.
That's why our technicians ask three questions before pricing rather than after: what was put in, how much, and if it's run. Those answers are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Keele and where it is
Keele is a small village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 185 metres, near the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Keele lies close to several nearby settlements, including Hawthorns, Silverdale, and Finney Green, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Keele is a relatively small community, with a population of approximately 314 residents, and is located about 4.9 miles from Stoke-on-Trent and 137.9 miles from London.
Fuel drain cover across Staffordshire, Keele included
Keele rests in the ST postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the locations around it as well — Hawthorns, Silverdale and Finney Green among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all locations our technicians work, and your car doesn't need to move to us.
Keele: still at the pump?
Then you're in the best spot there can be. Phone, and leave it switched off.