Petrol in a Diesel Car in Rangeworthy: How Worried Should You Be?
Provided it hasn't been started, worry less than you likely are. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first question everyone around Rangeworthy asks, and the truthful answer is normally no, because petrol resting in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it is dragged through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by being driven. To leave it like that, phone Petrol in Diesel then leave the motor alone. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has travelled, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that's the remainder of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to your engine
Diesel has two jobs on its way through a motor. It protects to begin with, and after that does it burn. Designed to extremely fine clearances, the fuel injectors and your pump depend on your diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. The clattering comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection your system rests on, and any pump running on that blend is wearing itself.
Together, those make the shape of the problem clear. Not contact but circulation is what causes the harm. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, carried by the fuel, into the fuel injectors further along, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical problem starts.
Four scenarios our technicians see around Rangeworthy: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, and never started: nothing beats it. The petrol is inside the tank and just the tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one scenario that can only really take place on a forecourt, since anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a second. With the system primed, the fuel lines and filter already hold petrol that came from your tank. Usually nothing more than draining, rinsing and sorting the fuel filter, so still simple.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent those miles labouring on weakened fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the whole circuit: that is the work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the mileage. A school run to Rangeworthy Church of England Primary School is one thing. Driving as far as Bristol, under 15 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any mileage on the M5, under 3 miles from Rangeworthy, with your engine labouring hard the whole time.
Driven till it protested. Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That's your motor telling you its fuel no longer is acting like diesel. Stop on the spot — on the verge on Wotton Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. A vehicle pulled over early very rarely has long-term damage, since the fuel drain and the flush, which still go first, take care of it.
Rangeworthy motorists and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. A bigger tank of the same mix is all it gives, since 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. A newer diesel runs its fuel through more precise components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
This is the one that catches people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." A petrol motor fed diesel generally won't run, so the driver stops and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually fires up, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened — all the while its pump wears. Being able to run isn't proof of being fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an old fix for a separate fault. None of what petrol diluted gets put back by it — and later, the tank still contains that petrol.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you're sorted." After the motor has run, some of the petrol is no longer inside the tank: it is in the fuel filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through your pump at your next start. It is also truly hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
Carelessness is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. So the mistake runs one way.
Routine and the vehicle getting out of step is how it happens. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that is brand new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Fuelling up in a hurry en route to Yate, with a train to catch. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and the hand does what it has always done.
Next time you fill up around Rangeworthy: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Plenty of vehicles state the fuel type inside the filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on your first fill in any vehicle you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does 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 car, say "diesel" aloud. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, so your phone goes away.
- Add-on devices exist for cars without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not accept a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in that tank makes a thinner blend. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to start the vehicle.
Put petrol in a diesel in Rangeworthy already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not fire it up, and do not switch your ignition on. If you're still at the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you push it away from the pump. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run.
Corrosion and deposits form the trouble with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Rangeworthy page.
Rangeworthy petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
A fair single quote doesn't exist here: four scenarios, four separate tasks. The situation itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Where the car is matters too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what that tank holds.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three questions: the fuel that got in, its amount, and whether it's run. That's why. A range becomes a straight figure when the answers are in.
About Rangeworthy itself
Rangeworthy is a small village in Gloucestershire, situated inland at an elevation of around 70 metres, approximately 10 miles from Bristol. Rangeworthy has a population of around 760 people, with predominantly detached housing. Rangeworthy is located near other small settlements such as Bagstone and Engine Common, and is about 100 miles west of London.
Fuel drain cover across Gloucestershire, Rangeworthy included
Bagstone, Engine Common and Iron Acton are among the spots near Rangeworthy that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Rangeworthy's BS postcode area. Our technicians drain wherever your vehicle is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
In Rangeworthy and still at the pump?
In that case, you could not be in a better spot. Ring, and keep it switched off.