How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Ruthrieston
Likely less than you are now — as long as nobody has started the car. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first thing everyone around Ruthrieston asks, and the truthful answer is generally no, since petrol resting in a diesel tank harms nothing till it's dragged through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by being driven. To leave the vehicle that way, phone Petrol in Diesel then leave your engine alone. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Diesel has two tasks on its way through a motor. It lubricates first, and after that does it burn. Your high-pressure pump and the injectors are built to very fine clearances, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from grinding against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on the mixture to wear itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the clattering.
The shape of the trouble is plain when you put those together. The harm is done by movement, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel issue. The start of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the fuel injectors beyond it.
Four scenarios our engineers see around Ruthrieston: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled but not once started — as good as it gets. That petrol is in your tank and just that tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one situation that can only truly happen on a forecourt, because anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. Your system has been primed, so petrol has left that tank and reached the filter and the lines. Still usually simple: drain, flush, and the filter dealt with.
Those few miles on the road were your pump working on fuel diluted by petrol throughout. Miles is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way the work includes that tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire system. The school run to the local primary school is one thing. Any miles on the M90, over 50 miles from Ruthrieston, means the engine working hard throughout, and a run to Aberdeen, under 3 miles away, is a very different job too.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. What you are hearing is the engine reporting fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Crathie Gardens East, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. Permanent damage is very rare when a vehicle is stopped soon, and the fuel drain and flush-through that still come first deal with it.
Myths Ruthrieston 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 when you top up — that tank simply carries more of the same mixture. That guidance supposes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A newer diesel runs its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the protection count more, not less.
This is the one that catches drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." The driver of a petrol engine fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the harm stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally fires up, idles and pulls away as if nothing has happened — all the while its pump wears. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It is an old workaround for a separate problem. It does not put back what petrol has diluted, and that petrol is still inside your tank after that.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol lies in your filter and lines, ready to go right back through the pump on your next start. It's also genuinely dangerous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. A diesel nozzle mostly will not fit a petrol car, yet the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and just in one direction.
Habit and your car falling out of step is when it takes place. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps arranged differently. Rushing for a train outside Aberdeen and fuelling up en route. Years of petrol vehicles behind you, a diesel Renault Megane in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and the hand repeats what it has always done.
Next time you fill up in Ruthrieston: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is only a clue.
- Check the filler flap. Plenty of vehicles state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in a car you do not know.
- One of each in the household? Label the key to your diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — because meaning to remember is not enough.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" aloud. Daft, perhaps, but it works.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so tuck your phone away and keep your mind on the pump.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- Stop as soon as you notice. Less petrol in the tank means a thinner blend. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel around Ruthrieston? Begin here
Then the order of things is brief. Do not switch the ignition on, and don't crank it. Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the pump if you're still on the forecourt, whether that is Asda or somewhere else. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That is a different fault — corrosion and deposits and not lost protection — and it has its own page for Ruthrieston.
Ruthrieston petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
An honest single price doesn't exist here: four situations, four separate tasks. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Two things come after that: the petrol that was put in as a share of what the tank takes, then the place the vehicle is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
That is why we ask three queries before pricing rather than after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Their answers are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Ruthrieston itself
Ruthrieston is a coastal suburban area in Aberdeen City, situated approximately 1.6 miles from Aberdeen city centre. Ruthrieston sits at a low elevation of around 14 metres, with its predominant housing stock consisting of flats. Ruthrieston is located near other suburban areas such as Ferryhill, Kaimhill, and Mannofield, and is home to a population of around 5575 people.
Fuel drain cover across Aberdeen City, Ruthrieston included
Ferryhill, Kaimhill and Mannofield are among the locations near Ruthrieston that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Ruthrieston's AB postcode area. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all places our technicians work, and the vehicle doesn't need to come to us.
At the pump in Ruthrieston, still?
Then, you could not be in a better spot. Keep it off. Phone.