Petrol in a Diesel Car in Reeds Holme: How Worried Should You Be?
Far less than you probably are, if it hasn't been started. Until your ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just waits there and does nothing. Which means the truthful reply to that first Reeds Holme question — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. Keep it that way: leave the engine off and call Petrol in Diesel. Further down, you will find what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it might have gone, and how to stop it happening to you again.
What petrol in a diesel does to the engine
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route through a motor. It combusts, and before it burns it protects. Extremely fine clearances go into the fuel injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only your diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. It is runnier than diesel and strips away the protection the fuel system depends 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 opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That's where the knocking comes from.
Put these together and the shape of the problem is plain. The harm is done by circulation, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel problem. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the injectors downstream.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our technicians see around Reeds Holme
Fuelled but not once started — as good as it gets. The petrol is in your tank and just that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one situation that can only truly take place at a forecourt, because anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
A moment's running, or merely the ignition on. Once primed, the fuel system has drawn petrol from that tank up to the filter and the fuel lines. Normally nothing more than clearing, cleaning and seeing to the filter, so still simple.
Your pump now worked a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that is what driving the vehicle does. Distance is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way the work runs to that tank, the lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire system. On the school run to Rawtenstall St Paul's Church of England Primary School, the mileage is short. A run as far as Salford, under 25 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M66, under 5 miles from Reeds Holme, where the motor has been running hard the whole time.
Driven till it protested. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Woodcroft Avenue, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they deal with it: when a vehicle is pulled over soon, permanent damage is very uncommon.
Petrol in a diesel stories Reeds Holme motorists hear
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. A bigger tank of the same mix is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that advice assumes.
Myth: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. A newer diesel sends its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that catches people. A petrol motor fed diesel usually will not run, so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually will; meanwhile your pump wears. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old workaround, supposed for another problem. What petrol has weakened stays weakened, and that petrol remains in that tank anyway.
The next start draws petrol back round the pump from the fuel lines and your filter, where some of it ends up once your engine has run. That's why a DIY tank drain does not leave you sorted — a myth. And, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is truly dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, 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 generally will not go into a petrol motor at all. So the slip runs one way.
When habit and your car stop matching, it happens. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Accrington. Precisely the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Passat for the first time. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
Reeds Holme drivers: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- The first fill in a new motor is the time to check your filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many vehicles state the fuel they take.
- One of each in the house? Mark the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember isn't enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the pump. It seems daft and it works.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- Add-on devices are available for motors without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol in the tank makes a thinner blend. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Reeds Holme?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start it, and don't switch your ignition on. Yet on the forecourt, at Shell or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the car away from the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, where petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Reeds Holme page.
What makes one Reeds Holme petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
Four different tasks lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there's no fair single price. Mostly, your cost shifts with which one you are in. Where the vehicle is matters too, and whether a van can safely reach it, after the proportion of petrol to what that tank holds.
That is why our technicians ask three questions before quoting rather than after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Reeds Holme
Reeds Holme is a suburban area situated on the lakeside in Lancashire, with a mix of detached housing and scenic views. Reeds Holme sits at an elevation of 205 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Reeds Holme is located near several smaller communities, including Rush Bed, Higher Constable, and Laund, and is approximately 16.3 miles from the city of Salford.
Across Lancashire and around Reeds Holme: fuel drain cover
Reeds Holme sits in the BB postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots around it as well — Rush Bed, Higher Constable and Laund among them. The vehicle doesn't need to come to us: our engineers drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
At the pump in Reeds Holme, still?
The best position there is, then — that is where you are. Call, and keep it turned off.