Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Raikes
Far less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your engine till something draws it through the system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the honest answer to the first question anyone in Raikes asks, "have I ruined it?", is usually no. Leave the motor off then call 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 clues of how far it has got, and the way to make sure you never do it again.
What petrol in a diesel does to your engine
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It combusts, and before it burns it protects. The high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors are designed to extremely fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from grinding against each other.
Of those two jobs, petrol manages the first badly and the second never. A pump working on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and takes away the lubrication your fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where any knocking comes.
Taken together, they show what shape the issue has. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the injectors further on.
Four situations our engineers see in Raikes: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, not once started. The best case there can be. The petrol is inside the tank and only the tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one scenario that can only really occur on a forecourt, since anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. Petrol has left your tank and reached your filter and the lines, since the system has been primed. Usually nothing more than draining, purging and sorting your filter, so still simple.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them working on weakened fuel. Distance is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way this work includes the tank, the fuel lines, your filter and clean fuel through the entire system. On the school run to St Stephen's Catholic Primary School and Nursery, A Voluntary Academy, the miles is small. Any distance on the M65, under 15 miles from Raikes, means the motor working hard throughout, and a run to Bradford, under 25 miles away, makes a very different task too.
Driven on till it complained — clattering, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Tarn Moor Crescent, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it where it is. A car pulled over soon very seldom has long-term damage, because the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, take care of it.
What Raikes motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. Nothing comes out when you top up — your tank just carries more of the same blend. A diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice assumes.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A modern diesel sends its fuel through finer parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up more drivers than any other. Diesel in a petrol motor usually means a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually will; meanwhile the pump grinds. A running engine does not mean fine.
An old fix for a different problem lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It does not put back what petrol has weakened, and the petrol is still in that tank afterwards.
Once the engine has run, part of that petrol sits in the filter and the lines, not the tank — and your next start sends it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" does not stand up. Draining petrol into a can by the roadside is also really hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the narrower 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 motor at all. So the error runs one way.
Routine and the vehicle getting out of step is when it happens. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your usual forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. Rushing for a train outside Skipton and filling up en route. Exactly the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Passat for the first time. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, your hand just does what it has always done.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up around Raikes
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most generally do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is only a hint.
- In a vehicle you do not know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before your first fill: plenty of vehicles print the fuel there.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key when a home has one of each. So label it.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Stop as soon as you notice. Less petrol in the tank means a weaker mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start the car.
Petrol already in a diesel around Raikes? Start here
In that case, there's only a short order of things. Never crank it, and don't turn your ignition on. If you're still at the forecourt — Barge Fuel Station or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push it clear of the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's been run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a different problem, with its own page for Raikes, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication.
Why one petrol in a diesel job in Raikes costs more than another
There is no fair single price for this, because the four situations above are four separate jobs. Which of them you are in is mostly what moves your cost. Next it is the share — how much petrol got in against how much that tank holds — and then where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before quoting, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Raikes itself
Raikes is a suburban area situated on the riverside in North Yorkshire, with a mix of detached housing and a population of around 2173 residents. Raikes sits at an elevation of 156 metres, close to nearby places such as Mill Fields and Rockwood. Raikes is located near the town of Skipton and is approximately 16.4 miles from the city of Bradford. Raikes is also around 187.6 miles from London, making it a relatively distant suburb from the capital city.
Fuel drain cover across North Yorkshire, Raikes included
Mill Fields, Rockwood and Skipton are among the spots around Raikes that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Raikes's BD postcode area. The vehicle does not need to come to us: we drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
At the petrol pump in Raikes, still?
Then, you could not be in a better spot. Keep it off. Ring.