How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Nutgrove
Likely less than you already are — provided no one has started the vehicle. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor until something pulls it through the system — your ignition priming the pump, your starter, or driving itself. So the honest answer to the first question anyone in Nutgrove asks, "have I wrecked it?", is generally no. Keep it that way: leave your motor off and phone Petrol in Diesel. The rest of this page explains what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Passing through an engine, diesel does two jobs at once. It combusts, and before it burns it lubricates. Made to very fine gaps, your injectors and the pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces 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 to wear itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is where you get the knocking.
The shape of the problem is clear once you put those together. It's circulation that does the damage, not contact. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. The start of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Petrol in a diesel in Nutgrove: how bad is it? Four situations
Filled up, and never started: nothing beats it. Being on a forecourt is what makes this possible: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept in that tank alone, it is cleared and flushed on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
A moment's running, or merely your ignition on. Once primed, the fuel system has pulled petrol from that tank up to the filter and your lines. Still usually easy: drain, flush, and the filter seen to.
A couple of miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them running on diluted fuel. The work is that tank, the lines, your filter and clean fuel through the whole system, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. On the school run to Nutgrove Methodist Primary School, the distance is small. Very different once more: a run to Liverpool, under 10 miles away, or some distance on the M62, under 3 miles from Nutgrove, where your engine never stopped working hard.
Driven on till it complained — rattling, smoke, a ragged idle, a dead throttle. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Aukland Grove, a lay-by or a side road, stop there and leave it. A car stopped quickly very rarely has lasting damage, because the fuel drain and the flush, which still go first, take care of it.
What Nutgrove motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that advice supposes.
Not so: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. Smaller components and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection matter more, not less.
One myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. A petrol motor fed diesel usually will not run, so the motorist stops and the harm stops with them. While the pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened. Fine and running are not the same at all.
An outdated workaround for a separate problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." None of what petrol diluted is put back by it — and afterwards, that tank still holds the petrol.
Once your engine has been run, part of that petrol is in the filter and the fuel lines, not that tank — and the next start pulls it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you are sorted" does not hold. It is also truly risky to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs at all
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. One way only, since of the nozzles: the slimmer petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle. That is how the forecourt makes it easy.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's new. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Thatto Heath. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Passat in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Next time you fill up in Nutgrove: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- The label is what counts, so read the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually 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 the first fill in a car you don't know.
- Label the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It sounds daft and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck the phone away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- The moment you realise, stop: less petrol inside that tank means a weaker mix. What to do next does not change, though — still do not crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Nutgrove?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. Ask the attendants to help you push it away from the pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's Shell or anywhere else. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a separate issue — Nutgrove has a page just for it.
What makes one Nutgrove petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
There's no fair single price for this, because the four scenarios above are four different jobs. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which situation you're in. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a proportion of what the tank holds, then the spot the car is in and whether our van can get to it safely.
What got in, how much, and if it's run — three queries we ask before costing, not after, for precisely that reason. Those answers are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Nutgrove itself
Nutgrove is a suburban area located on the lakeside in Merseyside, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Nutgrove sits at an elevation of 83 metres, approximately 9 miles from Liverpool, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Brown Edge and Thatto Heath. Nutgrove has a population of around 7559 residents, who enjoy the area's lakeside setting and proximity to the city. Nutgrove is also close to other local areas, including Grange Park.
Nutgrove and Merseyside: where our fuel drain cover runs
Petrol in diesel jobs in Nutgrove — part of the WA postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the locations about it, Brown Edge, Thatto Heath and Grange Park included. No need to move the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations where we work.
Nutgrove: still at the pump?
No position is better: that's where you are. Leave it turned off, then ring.