Newcastle upon Tyne: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Likely less than you are now — provided nobody has started the car. Till your ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to that first Newcastle upon Tyne query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Keep it like that: leave your motor off and ring Petrol in Diesel. The rest 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 does not happen to you again.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Passing through a motor, diesel does two things at the same time. Before it combusts, it lubricates — and then it combusts. The high-pressure pump and the injectors are designed to very fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing against one another.
Petrol does the first job poorly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump on the mixture to wear itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the clattering.
Combined, those leave the shape of the trouble plain. Not contact but circulation is what does the damage. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors downstream.
Four situations we see around Newcastle upon Tyne: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, not once started. The petrol is in your tank and only that tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one scenario that can only really take place at a forecourt, as anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or just your ignition on. Petrol has come out of that tank and got to the filter and the fuel lines, because the fuel system has been bled. Normally nothing more than emptying, purging and sorting your filter, and so still simple.
Those few miles on the road meant the pump labouring on fuel thinned by petrol the whole way. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, your filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit, and how hard your car was driven matters as much as how far. Driving the children to Christ Church CofE Primary School is one sort of trip. A run as far as Sunderland, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any mileage on the A167(M), under a mile from Newcastle upon Tyne, where the engine has been running hard throughout.
Driven on until it complained — knocking, smoke, a lumpy idle, a dead throttle. That is your motor telling you its fuel no longer is behaving like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Saint Mary's Place, a lay-by or a side street, stop there then leave it. What goes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that sorts it out, with lasting damage very rare when a car is pulled over quickly.
Petrol in a diesel stories Newcastle upon Tyne motorists hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. A bigger tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. That guidance presumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through more precise components: that is how a modern diesel handles its fuel, so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." This is the one that fools motorists. The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel usually stops, because it will not run, and the harm stops with them. While the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a distinct problem. The petrol is still in your tank afterwards, and what it has thinned isn't put back.
The next start draws petrol back round your pump out of your lines and your filter, where some of that ends up after the engine has been run. That is why a DIY tank drain doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. It's also really hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
No one does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly won't fit a petrol motor, yet the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake straightforward, and just in one direction.
When habit and the car stop matching, it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Two cars on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Manors with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it happens. With rain, a call arriving, or a car full of children to deal with, the hand just does what it has always done.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Newcastle upon Tyne
- The label is what matters, and so check the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- 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 do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key achieves more than any amount of meaning to remember, in a house with one of each.
- It sounds daft and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- 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 checking the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A thinner mix follows from less petrol inside that tank, yet the next step remains the same: don't fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel around Newcastle upon Tyne already?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Never start the vehicle, and don't switch the ignition on. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at Gulf itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it clear of the petrol pump if you ask. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it's been run.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Newcastle upon Tyne page.
One petrol in a diesel job around Newcastle upon Tyne costs more than another. Why?
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be fair. Mostly, the cost shifts with which one you are in. Next it is the share — how much petrol got in against how much your tank takes — and after that where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before any quote, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. With the replies, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Newcastle upon Tyne itself
Newcastle upon Tyne is a major city situated in the north of England, positioned on the River Tyne. It forms part of the Tyneside conurbation and is a significant urban centre in the region. The city is located inland, with the river flowing through it, and is situated opposite Gateshead. Newcastle upon Tyne is known for being a key population hub in North East England.
Newcastle upon Tyne and Tyne and Wear: where our fuel drain cover runs
Newcastle upon Tyne rests in the NE postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots near it as well — Shieldfield, Brandling Village and Battle Field among them. You need not bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all locations where we work.
In Newcastle upon Tyne and still at the pump?
The best position there is, then — that is where you are. Turned off it remains; then phone.