Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Queen Camel
Provided it hasn't been started, worry less than you likely are. "Have I ruined it?" is the first question everyone around Queen Camel asks, and the honest answer is normally no, because petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it is dragged through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by the starter, or by driving. Leave your engine off and phone Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
On its way through an engine, diesel does two tasks. It ignites, and before it ignites it lubricates. Made to extremely fine clearances, the fuel injectors and your pump rely on your diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump running on the mixture wearing itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the clattering.
Put these together and the shape of the issue is clear. Not contact but circulation is what does the harm. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by your fuel, into your injectors further along, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical fault starts.
Four scenarios our engineers see around Queen Camel: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Filled but never started — the best it gets. Being on a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol kept in that tank alone, it's emptied and rinsed on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
The ignition turned on, or a short start. Petrol has come out of that tank and got to the fuel filter and your lines, since your system has been bled. Still normally straightforward: drain, flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
The pump has worked a few miles on thinned fuel — that is what driving the car does. How hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far, and this work takes in that tank, your lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. Driving the children to Countess Gytha Primary School is one sort of trip. A run as far as Wells, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M5, under 25 miles from Queen Camel, where the engine has been running hard throughout.
Driven until it complained. Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That is the motor telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Pull up where you are — on the verge on Blackwell Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. Permanent damage is very unusual if a car is pulled over soon, and the drain and flush that still go first sort it out.
Queen Camel people and that petrol in a diesel stories they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. A fuller tank of the same mix is all you get, because topping up takes out nothing. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. More precise components and higher pressure are how a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that trips up more motorists than any other. Any petrol motor fed diesel usually won't run, so the motorist stops and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, while your pump wears. Running isn't the same as fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It was an old workaround, meant for another fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has diluted, and that petrol is still in the tank later.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump out of your lines and the filter, where some of that ends up after your engine has been run. That's why draining your tank yourself doesn't sort it — a myth. Besides, petrol drained into a can by the road is genuinely risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
It is rarely carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. So the slip runs one way.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it takes place. A vehicle that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your normal forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Yeovil Pen Mill. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it happens. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and the hand repeats what it has always done.
Next time you fill up around Queen Camel: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a hint.
- Many motors state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check there on your first fill in a vehicle you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key achieves more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a household with one of each.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so tuck your phone away and keep your mind on the pump.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Count it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- 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 fire it up.
Queen Camel: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is short. Starting it is out, and so is switching on the ignition. Yet at the forecourt, at Shell or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what got in, about how much, and if it has been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That is a different fault — corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection — and it has its own page for Queen Camel.
One petrol in a diesel job around Queen Camel costs more than another. Why?
An honest single quote does not exist here: four situations, four separate jobs. What moves your cost is chiefly which of them you are in. After that it's the proportion — how much petrol went in against how much that tank holds — and after that where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before any quote, instead of after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure once those answers are in.
About Queen Camel and where it is
Queen Camel is a village situated on the banks of the River Cam, in the South West of England, with a mix of detached housing and other residential properties. Queen Camel sits at an elevation of 31 metres, near the Somerset levels, and is close to nearby places such as Sparkford Hill and Eyewell. Queen Camel is located approximately 13 miles from the city of Wells and 111 miles from London. Queen Camel has a population of around 941 people, living in a predominantly rural setting.
Across Somerset and around Queen Camel: fuel drain cover
Sparkford Hill, Eyewell and Wales are among the locations around Queen Camel that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Queen Camel's BA postcode area. No need to bring the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places where we work.
In Queen Camel and still at the pump?
In that case, you could not be in a better spot. Keep it off. Call.