How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Selston Common
Far less than you probably are, provided it hasn't been started. Everyone around Selston Common starts with "have I wrecked it?", and the fair answer is generally no: petrol left in your tank of a diesel remains harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the system. To keep it that way, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave the engine switched off. The rest of this page explains what petrol really does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Passing through an engine, diesel does two jobs at once. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from grinding against one another is the diesel passing through them — they are built to very fine gaps.
Of those two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second not at all. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where the rattling starts.
Put those together and the shape of the trouble is clear. The damage is done by circulation, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to your injectors further on.
Four scenarios our technicians see in Selston Common: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, and not started: nothing beats it. On a forecourt, and genuinely only there, that petrol is still confined to the tank — since everywhere else the vehicle was driven to get to it. The task is emptying and cleaning on the spot.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. Once primed, your system has drawn petrol out of your tank as far as the fuel filter and the lines. Drain, flush, deal with the fuel filter: still usually simple.
A few miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them labouring on thinned fuel. How hard your car was driven counts as much as how far, and the work covers your tank, your lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole system. On the school run to Holly Hill Primary and Nursery School, the distance is small. Driving as far as Nottingham, under 10 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any distance on the M1, under a mile from Selston Common, with your engine working hard all the way.
Driven on till it protested — rattling, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and the engine is saying so. Leave it where it has stopped: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Nottingham Road. Long-term damage is very rare when a car is stopped quickly, and the fuel drain and flush-through that still go first take care of it.
Stories Selston Common motorists 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 comes out when you top up — the tank simply carries more of the same blend. The assumption behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A modern diesel sends its fuel through more precise components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up most drivers than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it generally will not run, and so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst the pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a different fault. That petrol is still in your tank after that, and what it has diluted is not put back.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you're sorted." Once your engine has run, some of that petrol is no longer inside that tank: it's in the filter and the fuel lines, and it goes right back through your pump at the next start. And, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is genuinely dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
A careless moment is seldom 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, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol car at all. So the slip runs one way.
It occurs when routine and your car stop matching. A vehicle that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or brand new. Two motors on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. Fuelling up in a rush en route to Kirkby in Ashfield, with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Megane after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it happens. The hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Selston Common
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — yet not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in a new vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many motors state which fuel to use.
- One of each in the house? Label your key to the diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — because intending to remember isn't enough.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you lift the nozzle — each time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop at once. A weaker mixture follows from less petrol inside the tank, yet your next step stays the same: don't crank it.
Selston Common: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition off as well. Yet on the forecourt, at the nearest petrol station or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different issue — Selston Common has a page just for it.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Selston Common costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate tasks, so no single quote for this would be honest. Which of them you are in is chiefly what moves the cost. Where your car is counts too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the proportion of petrol to what that tank holds.
Three queries come first, before quoting, rather than after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range turns into a straight figure once those replies are in.
About Selston Common itself
Selston Common is a suburban area located in Nottinghamshire, England, situated near the river and close to the city of Nottingham. Selston Common sits at an elevation of 146 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Selston Common is part of the wider East Midlands region, with nearby places including Woodnook and Annesley Lane End, and is approximately 118.6 miles from London.
Fuel drain cover in Selston Common and across Nottinghamshire
Petrol in diesel calls around Selston Common — part of the NG postcode area — go to teams that also cover the places about it, Woodnook, Skegness and Annesley Lane End included. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places we work, and the car doesn't need to come to us.
Still at the pump in Selston Common?
Then, you couldn't be in a better position. Ring, and leave it switched off.