Petrol in a Diesel Car in Leigh Park: How Worried Should You Be?
Provided it hasn't been started, worry far less than you probably are. Till your ignition primes the pump, your starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to the first Leigh Park question — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with your engine kept off, so it remains that way. The remainder of this page covers what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you again.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey through a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure pump and your injectors are built to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing against one another.
Petrol does the first task poorly and the second not at all. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where any rattling starts.
The shape of the trouble is clear once you put those together. Contact doesn't do the harm — circulation does. Where the petrol is only inside the tank, it is an issue of fuel, nothing more. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the fuel injectors beyond it.
Four situations we see around Leigh Park: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there is: filled up, never started. The petrol is inside that tank and just your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one situation that can only really take place on a forecourt, because anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition turned on, or a short start. The system has been primed, so petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and the lines. Usually nothing more than clearing, purging and sorting the fuel filter, so still simple.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them working on weakened fuel. Mileage is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way the work includes the tank, your lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the whole circuit. A school run to Riders Junior School is one thing. Driving as far as Portsmouth, under 10 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any miles on the A3(M), under 3 miles from Leigh Park, with your engine labouring hard all the way.
Driven on till it protested — knocking, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. What you are hearing is your motor signalling fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Dunsbury Way, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. Long-term damage is very uncommon if a car is pulled over early, and the fuel drain and flush that still come first deal with it.
What Leigh Park motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. Nothing comes out when you top up — your tank just carries more of the same blend. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that advice presumes.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. Protection matters more on newer diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through more precise components at higher pressure.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that fools drivers. Any petrol engine fed diesel normally will not run, so the motorist stops and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing happened — all while its pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
An outdated workaround for a separate problem lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It does not put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still inside your tank later.
If your engine has been run, part of the petrol sits in the fuel filter and the lines, not that tank — and your next start pulls it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. Clearing petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
No one does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol car at all. So the error runs one way.
The moment routine stops matching your car is the moment it happens. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. Your usual forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A rushed fill en route to Havant with a train to catch. Exactly the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Passat for the first time. Your hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Next time you fill up around Leigh Park: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- The label is what counts, so read the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- The first fill in a new motor is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many cars state the fuel they take.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a home with one of each.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- While you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol in the tank makes a weaker mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still don't start it.
Put petrol in a diesel around Leigh Park already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Don't switch your ignition on, and don't crank it. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at BP itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it clear of the petrol pump if you ask. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, about how much, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the issue with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Leigh Park page.
Leigh Park petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
There is no fair single quote for this, since the four situations above are four separate jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what shifts the cost. The ratio matters next, meaning how much of that tank is petrol, followed by the location of your car and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
What got in, how much, and if it's run — three questions our engineers ask before quoting, not after, for exactly that reason. Given the replies, there is a straight figure rather than a range.
About Leigh Park, briefly
Leigh Park is a suburban area in southern Hampshire, situated near the coast and approximately 6.8 miles northwest of Portsmouth. Leigh Park lies at an elevation of around 19 metres, and its location near the Solent Strait gives it a coastal character. Leigh Park is predominantly composed of terraced housing and is close to nearby places such as Stockheath, West Leigh, and Bedhampton.
Across Hampshire and in Leigh Park: fuel drain cover
Stockheath, West Leigh and Bedhampton are among the locations around Leigh Park that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Leigh Park's PO postcode area. You need not bring the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all places we drain.
Leigh Park: still at the petrol pump?
Then you're in the best place there is. Turned off it stays; then phone.