Petrol in a Diesel Car in Revidge: How Worried Should You Be?
Not started? Then less worried than you probably are. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to your engine until something draws it through the system — the ignition priming your pump, your starter, or driving on its own. So the honest answer to the first query everyone around Revidge asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. To keep the vehicle like that, ring Petrol in Diesel then leave your motor alone. The remainder of this page explains what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you a second time.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Diesel does two jobs on its way through an engine. Before it ignites, it lubricates — and then it ignites. The high-pressure pump and the injectors are made to very fine tolerances, and your diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing down against one another.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. It's runnier than diesel and removes the protection the system rests on, and so a pump running on a petrol mix 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's where the rattling comes from.
Put those together and the shape of the trouble is plain. Contact does not do the damage — movement does. Where the petrol is only inside that tank, it's a problem of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four scenarios we see around Revidge: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled up, never started. The best case there is. That petrol is inside the tank and just that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one scenario that can only really occur at a forecourt, as anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a second. The system has been bled, so petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and the lines. Still normally simple: drain, flush, and your filter dealt with.
Your pump now spent a few miles on thinned fuel — that's what driving the car meant. How hard the car was driven matters as much as how far, and this work covers the tank, your lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Driving the children to Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School Blackburn is one sort of trip. Getting as far as Preston, under 10 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any distance on the M65, under 3 miles from Revidge, with your engine running hard the whole time.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Whitehall Road. Long-term damage is very uncommon if a vehicle is pulled over early, and the fuel drain and flush that still go first deal with it.
Stories Revidge people hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a fuller tank, still the same mixture. A diesel fuel system doesn't tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that guidance assumes.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Smaller parts and higher pressure are the way a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that fools people. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it normally won't run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally starts, ticks over and pulls away like nothing happened — all the while its pump wears. Running doesn't mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a distinct fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and the petrol is still in that tank later on.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol lies in the filter and lines, waiting to go right back through your pump at the next start. Also, a can of petrol drained at the kerbside is truly dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. One way only, since of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it occurs. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two vehicles on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. Racing for a train outside Blackburn and fuelling up en route. Precisely the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Megane for the first time. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit wins.
Revidge motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- In a motor you don't know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before the first fill: plenty of vehicles state the fuel there.
- Label the key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- It sounds daft and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol in your tank makes a thinner mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still don't crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Revidge? Start here
Then the order of things is brief. Don't fire it up, and don't turn the ignition on. Ask the staff to help you push it away from the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that is EG On the Move or somewhere else. What was put in, about how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate fault — Revidge has a page all for it.
Revidge petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
There is no fair single quote for this, since the four situations above are four separate tasks. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you are in. Two things come after that: the petrol that went in as a proportion of what the tank holds, then the spot your car is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
What got in, how much, and whether it has run — three questions we ask before costing, not after, for precisely that reason. Those answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Revidge and where it is
Revidge is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated near the River Ribble and characterised by its terraced housing. Revidge sits at an elevation of 211 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Revidge is located near several other suburban areas, including Beardwood, Lammack, and Four Lane Ends, and is approximately 8 miles from Preston. Revidge has a population of around 7814 people, making it a relatively small but distinct community.
Revidge and Lancashire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Beardwood, Lammack and Four Lane Ends are among the places around Revidge that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Revidge's BB postcode area. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all spots we work, and your car does not need to move to us.
At the petrol pump in Revidge, still?
In that case, you could not be in a better place. Switched off it remains; then phone.