Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Peterculter
Provided it hasn't been started, worry less than you probably are. Everyone in Peterculter starts with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is generally no: petrol left inside your tank of a diesel stays harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the fuel system. Leave your motor off and ring Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's travelled, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that's the remainder of this page.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Diesel does two tasks on its way through a motor. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. What keeps the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing down against one another is your diesel flowing through them — they are designed to very fine clearances.
Of these two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second never. It is runnier than diesel and strips away the lubrication your fuel system depends on, and so a pump running on a petrol mixture is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is made to resist igniting under compression, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
The shape of the issue is plain once you put those together. Not contact but movement is what causes the damage. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to your injectors downstream.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our engineers see around Peterculter
The best case there is: filled up, not once started. Just the tank has petrol in it, and so the task is emptying the tank and cleaning your system where the car sits. This scenario can only really occur at a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. Petrol has come out of your tank and reached the fuel filter and the lines, since the fuel system has been bled. Still usually straightforward: drain, flush, and your filter seen to.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent these miles running on thinned fuel. Distance is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way the work includes your tank, the lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire system. Driving the kids to the local primary school is one sort of trip. Very different again: a run to Aberdeen, under 10 miles away, or some mileage on the M90, over 50 miles from Peterculter, where the motor kept labouring hard.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. That's the engine telling you its fuel has stopped behaving like diesel. Whether it is the verge on North Deeside Road, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with permanent damage very uncommon if a vehicle is pulled over soon.
Peterculter motorists and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mix. That guidance supposes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It does not.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through smaller parts: that is how a newer diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." This is the one that fools motorists. Any petrol engine fed diesel usually will not run, and so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally starts, idles and pulls away as if nothing happened — all while its pump wears. Being able to run isn't proof of being fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It's an outdated fix for a separate issue. The petrol is still in the tank after that, and what it has weakened isn't put back.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, ready to go right back through your pump at the next start. It's also really hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the mistake runs one way.
Habit and the car falling out of step is how it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's brand new. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Portlethen with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Passat in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Your hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Peterculter
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Check the filler flap. Plenty of motors state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a motor you do not know.
- Mark 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.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It sounds silly. It works.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you're thinking about something else.
- Add-on devices exist for cars without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that won't accept a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol in your tank means a weaker mix. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to start it.
Put petrol in a diesel around Peterculter already?
In that case, there is only a short order of things. Never start it, and don't switch your ignition on. The staff on the forecourt — whether at BP itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it away from the petrol pump if you ask. Ring 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the approximate volume, and if it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate issue — Peterculter has a page all for it.
What makes one Peterculter petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
An honest single quote does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate tasks. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you're in. Two things follow that: the petrol that got in as a share of what your tank holds, then the place your car is in and whether a van can get to it safely.
That's why our engineers ask three questions before quoting rather than after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Peterculter
Peterculter is a village situated on the banks of the River Dee in Aberdeen City, with a relatively low elevation of 49 metres. Peterculter lies approximately 7 miles west of Aberdeen and is surrounded by nearby places such as Stony Hill, Coalford, and Milltimber. Peterculter has a population of around 1667 people and predominantly features flat-type housing. Peterculter is located a significant distance from London, at around 395 miles away.
Across Aberdeen City and around Peterculter: fuel drain cover
Petrol in diesel call-outs in Peterculter — part of the AB postcode area — go to vans that likewise cover the places around it, Stony Hill, Coalford and Milltimber among them. The vehicle doesn't need to move to us: our technicians drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
Still at the petrol pump in Peterculter?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better spot. Ring, and leave it switched off.