Petworth: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Provided it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor till something draws it through the fuel system — the ignition priming your pump, your starter, or driving on its own. So the honest answer to the first question anyone in Petworth asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. To keep the vehicle like that, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your engine alone. The remainder 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 doesn't happen to you a second time.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Diesel has two jobs on its way through an engine. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors are made to extremely fine clearances, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing down against one another.
Of those two jobs, petrol manages the first poorly and the second never. It is runnier than diesel and removes the protection your fuel system hinges on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend 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 rattling comes from.
Together, those leave the shape of the problem plain. Contact does not do the harm — circulation does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. The start of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Petrol in a diesel around Petworth: how serious is it? Four cases
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there can be. That petrol is in that tank and just your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle stands. This is the one scenario that can only truly occur on a forecourt, because anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
The ignition switched on, or a short start. Petrol has come out of that tank and got to the fuel filter and the lines, because the fuel system has been primed. Still normally easy: drain, flush, and the filter seen to.
Those few miles on the road were your pump running on fuel thinned by petrol throughout. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the entire system, and how hard your car was driven matters as much as how far. A school run to Petworth Cof E Primary School is one thing. Getting as far as Chichester, under 15 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any distance on the Waterlooville Bypass, under 25 miles from Petworth, with your engine running hard the whole time.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and your motor is saying so. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Middle Street. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they deal with it: when a vehicle is stopped early, permanent damage is very rare.
Petworth people and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. Nothing is removed when you top up — that tank simply holds more of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A newer diesel runs its fuel through smaller parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." This is the one that fools motorists. A petrol engine fed diesel usually won't run, so the driver stops and the harm stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually does; meanwhile your pump grinds. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
An old fix for a separate issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." That petrol is still inside your tank after that, and whatever it has weakened isn't put back.
Once your engine has run, part of that petrol is in the fuel filter and the lines, not your tank — and the next start sends it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. Besides, petrol emptied into a can by the road is truly dangerous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two, and it slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. So the error runs one way.
When habit and your car stop matching, it happens. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Filling up in a hurry on the way to Pulborough, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Megane for the first time. Your hand repeats what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up around Petworth
- The label is what counts, and so read the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt.
- In a vehicle you don't know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: many cars print the fuel type there.
- Label your key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It seems 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.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you're thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a backstop, and keep reading the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A weaker blend results from less petrol inside that tank, yet your next step remains the same: don't start the vehicle.
Petworth: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off as well. Still at the forecourt, at Harvest Energy or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate fault — Petworth has a page just for it.
Petworth petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
A fair single price does not exist here: four situations, four separate tasks. Which of them you are in is mostly what shifts your cost. Where the vehicle is matters too, and whether a van can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what the tank holds.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three queries: your fuel that got in, its amount, and if it's run. That's why. The replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Petworth and its setting
Petworth is a small town in West Sussex, situated inland at an elevation of 59 metres, approximately 41.6 miles south-west of London. Petworth lies near the South Downs National Park, close to the cities of Chichester and the surrounding villages of Byworth, Flathurst, and Hampers Green. Petworth has a population of around 2592 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Petworth is characterised by its rural setting and historic architecture.
Fuel drain cover across West Sussex, Petworth included
Our teams answering petrol in diesel jobs in Petworth, in the GU postcode area, equally work the spots around it, Byworth, Flathurst and Hampers Green included. No need to move your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all spots where we work.
At the petrol pump around Petworth, right now?
No position is better: that's where you are. Turned off it stays; then call.