Petrol in a Diesel Car in Lickhill: How Worried Should You Be?
Less than you probably are, if it hasn't been started. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor till something pulls it through the system — the ignition priming your pump, your starter, or driving on its own. So the honest answer to the first query everyone around Lickhill asks, "have I ruined it?", is normally no. Leave your engine off then ring Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it has travelled, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that is the rest of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to the engine
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route round a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors are built to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing down against each other.
Of these two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second never. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump on the blend wearing itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the knocking.
Together, those leave the shape of the issue clear. Contact does not do the harm — movement does. Where that petrol is only in that tank, it is a fault of fuel, nothing more. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by your fuel, into the injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical problem starts.
Lickhill, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to major
Filled up, not once started. The best case there is. That petrol is in your tank and only that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one scenario that can only truly take place on a forecourt, since anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. The system has been bled, and so petrol has left your tank and got to the fuel filter and the lines. That is usually still a simple job — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them labouring on thinned fuel. How hard the car was driven counts as much as how far, and this work takes in the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. On the school run to St Wulstan's Catholic Primary School, the mileage is short. Driving as far as Worcester, under 15 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any miles on the M5, under 10 miles from Lickhill, with the engine labouring hard all the way.
Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Stop where you are — on the verge on Limetree Walk, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. A car pulled over soon very rarely has long-term damage, as the fuel drain and the flush-through, which still go first, sort it out.
Petrol in a diesel stories Lickhill drivers hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. A fuller tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. A diesel fuel system doesn't tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice assumes.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A modern diesel runs its fuel through finer parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel usually stops, since it will not run, and the harm stops with them. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile the pump wears. Running is not the same as fine.
An old workaround for a separate fault lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." None of what petrol thinned gets put back by it — and afterwards, the tank still contains the petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go straight back through the pump on the next start. And, a can of petrol filled at the roadside is genuinely risky.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. One way only, because of the nozzles: the slimmer petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
When habit and your car stop matching, it happens. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two cars on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps laid out differently. Racing for a train outside Hartlebury and fuelling up en route. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a driver used to petrol: precisely when it takes place. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, your hand just does what it has always done.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Lickhill
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is only a hint.
- Plenty of cars state the fuel type inside your filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on the first fill in any car you do not know.
- Mark your key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you lift the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems daft. It works.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep reading the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A thinner blend follows from less petrol in the tank, yet the next stage remains the same: do not crank it.
Lickhill: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is brief, then. Don't start it, and don't switch the ignition on. If you're still at the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That's a different problem — corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Lickhill.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Lickhill costs more than another
The four situations above are four different jobs, so no single price for this would be honest. Mostly, your cost moves with which situation you're in. After that it is the share — how much petrol got in against how much that tank holds — and after that where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before any quote, rather than after — what got in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Lickhill itself
Lickhill is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Worcestershire, with a mix of detached housing and a population of around 3865 residents. Lickhill lies near the confluence of the River Severn and the River Stour, close to the towns of Stourport-on-Severn and Areley Kings. Lickhill is located approximately 11 miles from Worcester and 109 miles from London, making it a commuter base for those working in the nearby cities. Lickhill's elevation of 30 metres above sea level gives it a relatively low-lying position in the surrounding landscape.
Fuel drain cover across Worcestershire, Lickhill included
The teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs in Lickhill, in the DY postcode area, also work the locations near it, Burlish Park, Stourport-on-Severn and Areley Kings among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all spots our technicians work, and your car doesn't need to move to us.
Lickhill: still at the pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better spot. Keep the vehicle switched off, then ring.