Petrol in a Diesel Car in Newbold: How Worried Should You Be?
Far less than you likely are, provided it hasn't been started. Till your ignition primes your pump, your starter cranks, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to that first Newbold query — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. Keep it that way: leave the motor off and phone Petrol in Diesel. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's travelled, and how to stop it from happening again: that's the rest of this page.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors are designed to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from grinding against each other.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. The rattling comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips out the protection the fuel system hinges on, and any pump working on that mixture is wearing itself.
The shape of the issue is clear once you put those together. Not contact but circulation is what does the harm. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by the fuel, into your injectors further along, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical problem begins.
Four scenarios our technicians see in Newbold: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled but not once started — as good as it gets. Only your tank has petrol in it, and so the task is clearing your tank and rinsing the system where the vehicle stands. This situation can only really take place on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Ignition on, or started for a second. The fuel system has been primed, so petrol has left that tank and got to the fuel filter and the lines. Still usually easy: drain, flush, and the filter dealt with.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent these miles working on diluted fuel. How hard your car was driven matters as much as how far, and this work covers your tank, the lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. Short trips, like the school run to Dunston Primary and Nursery Academy, are one thing. A run as far as Sheffield, under 10 miles away, is a very different task. So is any mileage on the M1, under 5 miles from Newbold, where the engine has been running hard throughout.
Driven on till it protested — clattering, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. That's the engine telling you its fuel no longer is acting like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Linscott Close, a lay-by or a side road, stop there then leave it. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that deals with it, with permanent damage very rare if a vehicle is stopped soon.
Myths Newbold motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. A bigger tank of the same mix is all you get, because topping up removes nothing. A diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage in the way that guidance presumes.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Finer components and higher pressure are how a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
This is the one that fools drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it usually will not run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump grinds. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
An old workaround for a different problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." What petrol has diluted stays diluted, and that petrol remains inside your tank regardless.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, since after it's been running some petrol sits in your filter and lines, ready to go straight back through your pump at the next start. It is also genuinely hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the roadside.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol car. That's how the forecourt makes it easy.
When routine and your car stop matching, it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. Racing for a train outside Chesterfield and fuelling up en route. Exactly the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Tiguan for the first time. With rain, a call coming in, or children to deal with, your hand simply does what it always has.
Newbold drivers: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- The label is what counts, and so read the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of motors state which fuel they take.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key if a house has one of each. So label it.
- 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 petrol pump. It sounds silly and it works.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck the phone away.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol in the tank makes a weaker mix. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't start it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Newbold already?
The order of things is short, then. Do not turn your ignition on, and do not crank it. Ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the petrol pump if you are still at the forecourt, whether that is Esso or somewhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That is a separate problem — corrosion and deposits and not lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Newbold.
Why one petrol in a diesel job in Newbold costs more than another
Four separate tasks sit behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no fair single quote. Which of them you're in is chiefly what moves your cost. The ratio counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the location of the vehicle and whether getting to it is safe for a technician.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three queries: your fuel that went in, its amount, and if it has run. That is why. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Newbold and its setting
Newbold is a suburban area in Derbyshire, situated approximately 9 miles from Sheffield and 132.8 miles from London, at an elevation of around 121 metres. Newbold has a population of around 5175 people and is characterised by predominantly semi-detached housing. Newbold is located near other local places such as The Bungalows, Dunston, and Upper Newbold, and is part of the wider East Midlands region.
Newbold and Derbyshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Petrol in diesel jobs around Newbold — part of the S postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the spots round it, The Bungalows, Dunston and Upper Newbold included. Our engineers drain wherever the vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
At the petrol pump around Newbold, right now?
Then you are in the best position there can be. Ring, and leave it turned off.