Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Rewe
Not started? Then less worried than you likely feel. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first question everyone around Rewe asks, and the truthful answer is usually no, because petrol left in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it's drawn through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by being driven. To leave the vehicle that way, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor switched off. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you don't do it again.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Diesel does two jobs on its way through a motor. Before it combusts, it protects — then it burns. Very fine gaps are built into the injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only your diesel flowing through keeps those surfaces from grinding together.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. The knocking 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 runnier than diesel, it strips away the lubrication the system rests on, and any pump running on that mix is wearing itself.
The shape of the issue is clear when you put those together. Not contact but movement is what does the damage. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the injectors beyond it.
Petrol in a diesel in Rewe: how bad is it? Four cases
Filled but never started — as good as it gets. That petrol is in that tank and only that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the car sits. This is the one scenario that can only truly happen at a forecourt, since anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Started for a second, or only your ignition on. With your system primed, your lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from that tank. Usually nothing more than draining, cleaning and seeing to the fuel filter, and so still easy.
Those few miles on the road were the pump running on fuel thinned by petrol throughout. How hard your car was driven counts as much as how far, and this work takes in the tank, the lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. A school run to Stoke Canon Church of England Primary School and Pre-School is one thing. Getting as far as Exeter, under 5 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any distance on the M5, under 3 miles from Rewe, with the motor working hard the whole time.
Knocking, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. What you are hearing is the engine reporting fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Green Lane. What goes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that sorts it out, with long-term damage very rare if a car is stopped quickly.
Stories Rewe drivers 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 when you top up — your tank just holds more of the same blend. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that advice assumes.
If anything, the opposite holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Finer parts and higher pressure are how a newer diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
One myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Diesel in a petrol motor usually means a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the harm. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst the pump grinds. Running is not the same as fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old fix, supposed for another problem. The petrol is still inside your tank after that, and what it has diluted is not put back.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." Once the engine has run, some of the petrol is no longer in the tank: it is in the fuel filter and the lines, and it goes straight back through the pump on your next start. On top of that, petrol drained into a can by the road is genuinely hazardous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs so easily
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the smaller 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 vehicle at all. So the mistake runs one way.
The moment habit stops matching the car is the moment it takes place. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. Two vehicles on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Rushing for a train outside Pinhoe and fuelling up en route. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it happens. The hand repeats what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Rewe
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Many vehicles state the fuel type inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check it on your first fill in a motor you do not know.
- Label the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- While you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck the phone away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, then keep checking the petrol pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol in your tank means a weaker blend. What to do next doesn't change, though — still do not start the car.
Petrol already in a diesel around Rewe? Start here
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Do not crank it, and don't switch your ignition on. The attendants on the forecourt — whether at Murco itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it clear of the pump if you ask. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and if it has 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 Rewe page.
Rewe petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
Four separate jobs sit behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no fair single quote. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Where the car is counts too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what your tank holds.
Three questions come first, before any quote, rather than after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. Given those answers, there is a straight figure rather than a range.
About Rewe and its setting
Rewe is a small village in Devon, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 36 metres. Rewe lies close to the city of Exeter, approximately 4.8 miles away, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Columbjohn and Netherexe. Rewe has a population of around 551 people and predominantly consists of detached housing.
Rewe and Devon: where our fuel drain cover runs
Rewe sits in the EX postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the spots around it as well — Columbjohn, Netherexe and Brookleigh among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all locations our technicians work, and the vehicle does not need to come to us.
Still at the pump in Rewe?
Then, you could not be in a better spot. Switched off it stays; then phone.