How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Salterforth
Likely less than you are now — provided nobody has started it. "Have I ruined it?" is the first thing everyone in Salterforth asks, and the truthful answer is normally no, because petrol left in a diesel tank harms nothing until it is drawn through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. Leave your engine off then ring Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it like that. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Diesel has two tasks on its way through an engine. It burns, and before it combusts it protects. Your high-pressure pump and the injectors are designed to very fine gaps, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing against one another.
The second task petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does badly. A pump working on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the protection the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that's where the rattling starts.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. The damage is done by circulation, not by contact. Petrol in the tank is a fuel problem. Once your pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical fault has started: whatever is shed by a pump that is wearing down is carried downstream to the injectors with the fuel.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations we see in Salterforth
Filled up, never started. The best case there is. At a forecourt, and really only there, the petrol is still limited to your tank — since anywhere else the car was driven to reach it. The task is draining and purging on the spot.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. The system has been bled, and so petrol has left that tank and got to the filter and your lines. Normally little more than clearing, flushing and sorting the filter, so still easy.
Your pump has worked a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that's what driving the vehicle meant. Distance is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way the work includes the tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. Driving the children to Salterforth Primary School is one kind of trip. Very different a second time: a run to Bradford, under 25 miles away, or any distance on the M65, under 5 miles from Salterforth, where the motor never stopped labouring hard.
Driven on until it protested — knocking, smoke, a ragged idle, a soft throttle. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it's the verge on Earby Road, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. Lasting damage is very unusual if a car is pulled over soon, and the fuel drain and flush that still come first sort it out.
What Salterforth motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — your tank just holds more of the same mixture. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that advice presumes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. Lubrication counts more on current diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through more precise parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that catches more people than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it normally will not run, and so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, while your pump wears. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
An old workaround for a distinct issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." None of what petrol diluted is put back by it — and afterwards, the tank still holds that petrol.
If the motor has been run, part of that petrol sits in your filter and the lines, not that tank — and the next start sends it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't stand up. It's also really hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the roadside.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the error runs one way.
Habit and your car getting out of step is how it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that is brand new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Rushing for a train at Colne and filling up en route. Exactly the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Passat for the first time. Your hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up around Salterforth
- The label is what matters, and so read the petrol pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many cars state which fuel they take.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on your diesel's key when a household has one of each. So mark it.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems silly. It works.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so put the phone away and keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- Add-on devices exist for motors without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a backstop only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol in that tank means a weaker mix. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Salterforth: already put petrol in a diesel?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Don't switch the ignition on, and don't crank it. Still on the forecourt, at Shell or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the car away from the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
Corrosion and deposits form the issue with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Salterforth page.
One petrol in a diesel task in Salterforth costs more than another. Why?
Four different jobs lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no fair single price. Which of them you are in is mostly what moves your cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a proportion of what that tank takes, then the place the car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three questions: your fuel that went in, its amount, and if it's run. That is why. The answers change a range into a straight figure.
About Salterforth, briefly
Salterforth is a village in Lancashire, situated on the riverside in the North West of England, with a population of around 546 people. Salterforth has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are the most common, and the village is located near other small communities such as Park Close and North Holme. Salterforth sits at an elevation of 147 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Sough. Salterforth is approximately 186 miles from London and 19 miles from Bradford.
Across Lancashire and in Salterforth: fuel drain cover
Our teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Salterforth, in the BB postcode area, also work the locations near it, Park Close, North Holme and Sough among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places our engineers drain, and the vehicle does not need to come to us.
Still at the pump around Salterforth?
In that case, you could not be in a better place. Turned off it remains; then call.