Shillingford: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Less than you likely are, provided it hasn't been started. Until the ignition primes your pump, the starter turns, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to that first Shillingford query — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Leave your engine off and ring Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it like that. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you don't do it again.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Passing through a motor, diesel does two jobs at once. It protects to begin with, and only then does it burn. Made to very fine gaps, your injectors and your pump rely on your diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
The second task petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump running on that mixture to wear itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the knocking.
Taken together, they make clear what shape the problem has. Not contact but circulation is what does the harm. Where that petrol is only inside that tank, it's an issue of fuel, nothing more. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by the fuel, into the fuel injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on that petrol is where a mechanical issue starts.
Petrol in a diesel in Shillingford: how bad is it? Four situations
Filled but never started — as good as it gets. That petrol is in that tank and just your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one situation that can only really take place at a forecourt, since anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
A moment's running, or just your ignition on. Your system has been primed, and so petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and the fuel lines. That is generally still a simple job — a drain, a flush, and the filter dealt with.
The pump has worked a couple of miles on weakened fuel — that is what driving it does. Miles is only half of it; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way the work runs to your tank, the lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit. Driving the children to St Laurence Church of England School is one kind of trip. Getting as far as Oxford, under 10 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any mileage on the M40, under 10 miles from Shillingford, with the motor working hard all the way.
Driven on till it protested — clattering, smoke, an uneven idle, a soft throttle. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and the motor is telling you. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Cherry Close, a lay-by, a side street — then leave it there. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that takes care of it, with permanent damage very uncommon when a car is pulled over soon.
Petrol in a diesel myths Shillingford people hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a fuller tank, still the same mixture. The idea behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the reverse. Protection counts more on newer diesels, not less, because their fuel passes through more precise components at higher pressure.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that fools drivers. The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel usually stops, since it will not run, and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, ticks over and pulls away as if nothing has happened — all while its pump wears. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a different fault. What petrol has weakened remains weakened, and the petrol stays in that tank regardless.
If the motor has run, part of that petrol is in your filter and the lines, not your tank — and your next start sends it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you are sorted" doesn't hold. It's also genuinely hazardous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Why petrol in a diesel takes place so easily
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor at all. So the error runs one way.
When habit and your car stop matching, it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's new. Two motors on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A rushed fill on the way to Cholsey with a train to catch. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Your hand repeats what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Shillingford drivers: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most generally do. Read the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- Many cars state the fuel type inside your filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on the first fill in any car you do not know.
- Label your key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so tuck your phone away then keep your mind on the petrol 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 motors without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a weaker mix, so stop as soon as you notice — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel around Shillingford already?
In that case, there is only a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. Ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that's BP or somewhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
Corrosion and deposits are the trouble with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Shillingford page.
One petrol in a diesel job around Shillingford costs more than another. Why?
There's no fair single quote for this, because the four scenarios above are four separate tasks. What shifts your cost is chiefly which of them you're in. Where your car is matters too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the share of petrol to what that tank takes.
Three questions come first, before quoting, instead of after — what went in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. Their replies are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Shillingford
Shillingford is a village in Oxfordshire, situated on the banks of the River Thames at an elevation of around 51 metres. Shillingford lies approximately 9.7 miles south of Oxford and 44.4 miles west of London, with nearby villages including Warborough and Overy. Shillingford has a population of around 643 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Fuel drain cover around Shillingford and across Oxfordshire
Petrol in diesel jobs in Shillingford — part of the OX postcode area — go to vans that also cover the locations round it, Warborough, Meadside and Overy included. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all locations we work, and the car does not need to come to us.
Still at the pump around Shillingford?
Then you're in the best position there can be. Switched off it remains; then phone.