Little Burton: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Probably less than you already are — provided nobody has started the car. Everyone in Little Burton starts with "have I ruined it?", and the honest answer is usually no: petrol resting inside the tank of any diesel remains harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into the fuel system. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with your engine kept off, and so it stays that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has gone, and how to keep it from happening again: that's the rest of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to the engine
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two things at the same time. It burns, and before it combusts it protects. What keeps the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from wearing down against each other is the diesel passing through them — they're made to very fine tolerances.
Petrol handles the first task badly and the second not at all. The rattling comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the lubrication your system rests on, and any pump running on that mix is wearing itself.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. Contact doesn't do the harm — movement does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the injectors downstream.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our technicians see in Little Burton
Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there can be. On a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still confined to that tank — because everywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The task is emptying and flushing on the spot.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. The system has been primed, and so petrol has left the tank and reached the filter and the fuel lines. Usually nothing more than clearing, flushing and sorting the fuel filter, so still simple.
Your pump now spent a few miles on weakened fuel — that is what driving the car does. How hard your car was driven counts as much as how far, and the work covers the tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. Driving the children to Samuel Allsopp Primary and Nursery School is one kind of trip. A run as far as Derby, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M42, under 10 miles from Little Burton, where the engine has been working hard throughout.
Driven till it protested. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and your motor is saying so. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Little Burton West. A car pulled over early very rarely has permanent damage, because the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, sort it out.
Stories Little Burton motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." A fuller tank of the same mix is all you get, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance assumes.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that is how a modern diesel handles its fuel, so the protection matters more, not less.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." Diesel in a petrol motor normally means a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. Whilst the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened. Running is not the same as fine.
An old workaround for a different problem lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." The petrol is still inside that tank afterwards, and what it has diluted isn't put back.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." Once the engine has been run, some of the petrol is no longer inside that tank: it's in your filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through the pump at your next start. And, a can of petrol drained by the roadside is truly risky.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
It is seldom carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the mistake runs one way.
The moment routine stops matching your car is the moment it takes place. Any car that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. A rushed fill on the way to Burton-On-Trent with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a driver accustomed to petrol: precisely when it happens. With rain, a call arriving, or a car full of children to deal with, your hand simply does what it has always done.
Next time you fill up in Little Burton: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- The label is what matters, so check the pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt.
- The first fill in a strange car is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many vehicles state the fuel they take.
- Mark the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It seems silly and it does the trick: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Add-on devices exist for motors without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol in that tank means a thinner blend. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't fire it up.
Petrol already in a diesel around Little Burton? Begin here
Then the order of things is short. Never crank it, and don't turn your ignition on. Ask the staff to help you roll it away from the petrol pump if you're still on the forecourt, whether that's Shell or somewhere else. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — your fuel, the approximate amount, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Little Burton page.
Why one petrol in a diesel task around Little Burton costs more than another
A fair single price doesn't exist here: four situations, four separate jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what shifts your cost. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what your tank takes, then the place your car is in and whether our van can get to it safely.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that went in, the amount, and if it has run. That is why. With those replies, there is a straight figure rather than a range.
About Little Burton and where it is
Little Burton is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Staffordshire, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 7643 residents. Little Burton lies near the city of Derby, approximately 10 miles away, and is close to nearby places such as Burton upon Trent and Horninglow. Little Burton is characterised by its low elevation of 48 metres above sea level, and its proximity to the River Trent. Little Burton forms part of the wider West Midlands region, around 110 miles northwest of London.
Little Burton and Staffordshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Our vans answering petrol in diesel jobs around Little Burton, in the DE postcode area, equally work the locations near it, Burton upon Trent, Horninglow and Outwoods included. We drain where your car is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
Little Burton: still at the petrol pump?
Then, you could not be in a better place. Switched off it remains; then call.