How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Raikes
If it has not been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor till something draws it through your fuel system — the ignition priming the pump, your starter, or driving itself. So the fair answer to the first query anyone in Raikes asks, "have I wrecked it?", is normally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to call, with your engine kept off, and so it remains that way. The rest of this page explains what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
What petrol in a diesel does to your engine
Passing through an engine, diesel does two things at once. Before it ignites, it lubricates — then it ignites. Your high-pressure pump and the injectors are designed to extremely fine clearances, and your diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing down against each other.
Of these two tasks, petrol handles the first badly and the second never. It's thinner than diesel and removes the protection the fuel system rests on, 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 reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the rattling comes from.
The shape of the problem is clear once you put those together. Not contact but movement is what causes the harm. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors further on.
Petrol in a diesel around Raikes: how bad is it? Four situations
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. At a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still limited to your tank — since everywhere else the car was driven to get to it. The task is draining and flushing on the spot.
A brief spell of running, or just the ignition on. Once primed, the system has pulled petrol from your tank as far as the fuel filter and the lines. That is usually still a simple task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Those few miles on the road were the pump running on fuel diluted by petrol the whole way. How hard the car was driven matters as much as how far, and this work covers the tank, the lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. Driving the children to Stanah Primary School is one sort of trip. Any distance on the M55, under 10 miles from Raikes, means your engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Preston, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task as well.
Driven on until it complained — knocking, smoke, an uneven idle, a dead throttle. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and your engine is telling you. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Stanah Road. What comes first is still the drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with lasting damage very rare when a vehicle is pulled over soon.
Petrol in a diesel stories Raikes drivers hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank simply holds more of the same blend. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. Lubrication counts more on modern diesels, not less, since their fuel passes through finer components at higher pressure.
One myth that catches people out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel normally stops, because it will not run, and the damage stops with them. Whilst the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an outdated workaround for a separate problem. None of what petrol weakened gets put back by it — and later, the tank still holds the petrol.
If your engine has run, part of that petrol is in the filter and the lines, not the tank — and the next start sends it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. Emptying petrol into a can at the kerbside is also truly dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. The forecourt makes it simple: 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 won't go into a petrol vehicle at all. So the error runs one way.
Habit and your car getting out of step is how it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. Fuelling up in a hurry on the way to Poulton-Le-Fylde, with a train to catch. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Next time you fill up in Raikes: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- The label is what counts, and so check the petrol pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many motors state which fuel to use.
- One of each in the household? Mark your key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since meaning to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fuel a hired or new car, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, yes, but it works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make while your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for the rest. Count it as a backstop, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- Noticing it halfway? Stop at once. A thinner mix follows from less petrol inside the tank, but your next step remains the same: do not fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Raikes?
In that case, there's only a short order of things. Don't start the car, and don't turn the ignition on. If you're still at the forecourt — BP or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the pump. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — your fuel, the rough amount, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the issue with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Raikes page.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Raikes costs more than another
Four different jobs sit behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single quote. Which of them you're in is mostly what shifts your cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a share of what your tank holds, then the place the car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range turns into a straight figure once those replies are in.
About Raikes
Raikes is a coastal suburban area in Lancashire, situated near the towns of Thornton and Stanah, with Little Thornton also nearby. Raikes has a relatively low elevation of around 8 metres above sea level and is located approximately 14 miles from Preston. Raikes is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its residential nature. Raikes is also some distance from London, at around 203 miles away.
Fuel drain cover across Lancashire, Raikes included
Raikes waits in the FY postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots near it as well — Thornton, Stanah and Little Thornton among them. No need to bring your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all spots where we work.
Raikes: still at the petrol pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better position. Keep it off. Ring.