Petrol in a Diesel Car in Linden: How Worried Should You Be?
Far less than you probably are, provided it has not been started. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor till something pulls it through your fuel system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the fair answer to the first query everyone in Linden asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with your motor left off, so it stays that way. The remainder of this page covers what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Diesel does two jobs on its way through a motor. It ignites, and before it burns it lubricates. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing down against one another is the diesel passing through them — they are built to extremely fine tolerances.
Petrol does the first job poorly and the second not at all. It is runnier than diesel and removes the protection your fuel system depends on, and so a pump running on a petrol mix is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is designed to resist igniting under compression, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That's where the knocking comes from.
Put those together and the shape of the trouble is plain. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our technicians see in Linden
Fuelled, and not started: no case is better. Only the tank has petrol in it, and so the job is clearing that tank and cleaning your system where your car stands. This scenario can only truly happen at a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. With the system primed, the lines and filter already hold petrol that has come from that tank. That's usually still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and your filter seen to.
Your pump now worked a couple of miles on weakened fuel — that's what driving the vehicle meant. The work is that tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. The school run to Linden Primary School is one matter. Any miles on the M5, under 3 miles from Linden, means the engine working hard throughout, and a run to Gloucester, under 3 miles away, is a very different job too.
Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and your engine is telling you. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Seymour Road. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they take care of it: when a vehicle is stopped early, long-term damage is very rare.
What Linden drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine" — a myth. It won't. A fuller tank of the same mixture is all you get, because topping up takes out nothing. That advice presumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
"Modern diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. Smaller parts and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
This is the one that catches people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." The driver of a petrol motor fed diesel normally has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the harm stops there. While the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened. Fine and running are not the same thing.
An outdated fix for a distinct problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." None of what petrol thinned gets put back by it — and afterwards, the tank still holds that petrol.
If the motor has run, part of that petrol sits in your filter and the lines, not the tank — and your next start sends it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't hold. Clearing petrol into a can at the roadside is also really dangerous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. A diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle, but the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake easy, and just in that direction.
When routine and your car stop matching, it happens. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your normal forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A hurried fill en route to Gloucester with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Passat, its first fuelling, and a motorist used to petrol: exactly when it occurs. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Linden people: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- 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 any car you don't know.
- One of each in the house? Mark your key to the diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — since intending to remember is not enough.
- It seems silly and it does the trick: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so put your phone away then keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for cars without one. They are a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol in your tank makes a weaker mix. What to do next does not change, though — still do not start it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Linden already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. If you're still at the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different issue — Linden has a page just for it.
Linden petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be honest. Chiefly, your cost moves with which one you're in. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what your tank holds, then the spot the vehicle is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
That is why our technicians ask three questions before pricing instead of after: what went in, how much, and if it's run. Those replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Linden, briefly
Linden is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Gloucester in Gloucestershire, situated near the river at a low elevation of around 15 metres. Linden sits close to nearby places such as St Pauls, Hempsted, and Podsmead, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Linden is part of the larger Gloucester urban area, with the city centre just 1.2 miles away.
Fuel drain cover around Linden and across Gloucestershire
Our teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs in Linden, in the GL postcode area, also work the locations around it, St Pauls, Hempsted and Podsmead included. Our technicians drain wherever your vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
Still at the pump in Linden?
The best spot there is, then — that is where you are. Call, and leave it switched off.