Petrol in a Diesel Car in Lovedean: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you are now — as long as no one has started the vehicle. Everyone around Lovedean begins with "have I wrecked it?", and the fair answer is normally no: petrol resting in your tank of any diesel stays harmless till priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the fuel system. Leave the motor off then phone Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it like that. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
On its way through an engine, diesel does two tasks. Before it ignites, it protects — then it combusts. Extremely fine clearances are built into your injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only the diesel flowing through stops their surfaces grinding together.
The second task petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. 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 runnier than diesel, it strips away the protection the system hinges on, and any pump running on that mixture is wearing itself.
The shape of the issue is clear when you put those together. Contact doesn't do the harm — circulation does. Where that petrol is only in that tank, it is a problem of fuel, nothing more. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by your fuel, into the fuel injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical issue begins.
Four situations our technicians see around Lovedean: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, not once started. The best case there is. That petrol is inside your tank and just the tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one situation that can only really take place on a forecourt, as anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition switched on, or a brief start. With the system primed, the lines and filter now contain petrol that has come from that tank. That's usually still a straightforward job — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Those few miles on the road meant the pump running on fuel weakened by petrol the whole way. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the whole system: that is this work, and the way your car was driven counts as much as the distance. Short trips, such as the school run to Woodcroft Primary, are one thing. Getting 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 Lovedean, with your engine running hard all the way.
Driven on till it complained — rattling, smoke, a ragged idle, a soft throttle. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Blackthorn Avenue, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. A vehicle stopped quickly very rarely has long-term damage, as the drain and the flush, which still go first, sort it out.
What Lovedean motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. The idea behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. A modern diesel sends its fuel through more precise components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
One myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. The driver of a petrol motor fed diesel normally stops, because it will not run, and the harm stops there. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally fires up, idles and pulls away like nothing has happened — all while its pump wears. Fine and running are not the same at all.
An old workaround for a distinct fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." The petrol is still in your tank after that, and what it has weakened isn't put back.
If the motor has been run, part of the petrol is in the fuel filter and your lines, not that tank — and your next start pulls it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" does not hold. Besides, petrol emptied into a can by the road is genuinely dangerous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. A diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error easy, and only in one direction.
It happens when routine and the car stop matching. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Fuelling up in a hurry on the way to Rowlands Castle, with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it occurs. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Lovedean drivers: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in a new motor is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many motors state the fuel to use.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on the diesel's key if a household has one of each. So label it.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the pump. It seems silly and it works.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make whilst your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- 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 vehicles without one. They are a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a weaker mix, and so stop the moment you notice — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to start the vehicle.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Lovedean?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition off as well. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at Esso itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it away from the pump if you ask. What was put in, about how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a separate problem, with its own page for Lovedean, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
Why one petrol in a diesel job in Lovedean costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate tasks, so no single price for this would be fair. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you're in. The proportion matters next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of the vehicle and whether getting to it is safe for a van.
What went in, how much, and if it has run — three questions our technicians ask before costing, not after, for precisely that reason. A range becomes a straight figure when those replies are in.
About Lovedean, for a moment
Lovedean is a suburban area in Hampshire, situated approximately 8 miles north of Portsmouth and 57 miles south west of London. Lovedean sits in a relatively low-lying area at around 60 metres above sea level, surrounded by other residential communities such as Honeywood Mews and Wecock. Lovedean has a population of around 3799 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Lovedean is close to the South Downs National Park, with Horndean to the north.
Lovedean and Hampshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Petrol in diesel call-outs in Lovedean — part of the PO postcode area — go to teams that also cover the locations around it, Honeywood Mews, Wecock and Horndean among them. You need not move your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places we drain.
At the petrol pump around Lovedean, right now?
Then, you couldn't be in a better place. Switched off it remains; then phone.