Petrol in a Diesel Car in Mossley: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you already are — as long as nobody has started it. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor till something draws it through the system — the ignition priming the pump, the starter, or driving itself. So the truthful answer to the first query anyone around Mossley asks, "have I ruined it?", is generally no. Leave your motor off and call Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you never do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It lubricates first, and only then does it burn. Built to very fine clearances, the fuel injectors and the pump rely on your diesel moving through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on the blend wearing itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the rattling.
Seen together, they make clear what shape the problem has. Not contact but movement is what does the harm. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the injectors downstream.
Mossley, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to major
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. On a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still limited to your tank — since everywhere else the vehicle was driven to reach it. The job is emptying and cleaning on the spot.
A brief spell of running, or just the ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the fuel lines and filter now hold petrol that came from the tank. That's normally still a straightforward task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter seen to.
Those few miles driven meant the pump labouring on fuel diluted by petrol throughout. The work is that tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. Short trips, like the school run to St Joseph's RC Primary School, are one thing. Very different a second time: a trip to Manchester, under 10 miles away, or any distance on the M60, under 5 miles from Mossley, where the engine kept working hard.
Driven until it complained. Clattering, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. What you are hearing is the motor signalling fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Lancaster Street. What comes first is still the drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with long-term damage very unusual when a vehicle is stopped quickly.
Mossley motorists and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a fuller tank, still the same mix. The assumption behind the guidance — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. A current diesel sends its fuel through finer parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up more motorists than any other. Diesel in a petrol motor normally leaves a motor that won't run: the motorist stops, and so does the harm. 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. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
An outdated workaround for a distinct problem lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." The petrol is still in that tank after that, and whatever it has thinned is not put back.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you're sorted." Once the engine has run, some of that petrol is no longer in your tank: it is in the fuel filter and the lines, and it goes right back through the pump on your next start. It is also really risky to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol car, but the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake straightforward, and only in that direction.
Routine and the vehicle getting out of step is when it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and motors that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A hurried fill en route to Mossley (Manchester) with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Clio after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it occurs. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and the hand does what it has always done.
Mossley people: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- The label is what matters, so read the pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt.
- The first fill in a new vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state which fuel to use.
- One of each in the house? Mark the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because meaning to remember is not enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the pump. It sounds silly and it works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make while your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the rest. Count it as a backstop, then keep reading the pump.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol in the tank means a thinner mixture. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Mossley already?
The order of things is brief, then. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Texaco itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help roll it away from the pump if you ask. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a different problem, with its own page for Mossley, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Mossley costs more than another
An honest single price doesn't exist here: four situations, four separate jobs. What moves the cost is mostly which of them you're in. The proportion counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of your car and whether getting to it is safe for a technician.
What went in, how much, and whether it has run — three questions our engineers ask before pricing, not after, for exactly that reason. A range becomes a straight figure when those answers are in.
About Mossley, briefly
Mossley is a town in Greater Manchester, situated on the River Tame and the border with West Yorkshire. Mossley sits at an elevation of 213 metres, with the Pennine hills rising to the east. Mossley has a mix of old and new housing, with terraced houses being the predominant type, and is close to nearby places such as Mossley Brow and Brook Bottom. Mossley is located near the city of Manchester, approximately 8.6 miles to the south-west.
Across Greater Manchester and in Mossley: fuel drain cover
Mossley waits in the OL postcode area, and the vans that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the places around it as well — Mossley Brow, Brook Bottom and Sandbed among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all locations we work, and your car does not need to move to us.
Still at the pump around Mossley?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better place. Keep the vehicle turned off, and ring.