Petrol in a Diesel Car in Shirley: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you are now — provided no one has started the vehicle. Until your ignition primes your pump, the starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just waits there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to that first Shirley query — "have I ruined it?" — normally no. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with the engine kept off, and so it remains that way. Below, this page sets out what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it might have gone, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Passing through an engine, diesel does two things at the same time. Before it burns, it lubricates — and then it combusts. Built to extremely fine clearances, the fuel injectors and the pump depend on your diesel moving through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that's petrol. It's runnier than diesel and strips away the lubrication the system depends on, and so a pump running on a petrol mixture is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is designed to resist igniting under compression, which is the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the rattling comes from.
The shape of the problem is clear once you put those together. It's circulation that causes the damage, not contact. Where the petrol is only inside the tank, it is an issue of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the injectors further on.
Four scenarios we see around Shirley: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled, and not started: nothing beats it. Being at a forecourt is what makes this possible: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With that petrol kept inside the tank alone, it's cleared and cleaned on the spot, and nothing more is needed.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. The system has been primed, and so petrol has left the tank and got to the filter and the fuel lines. Still usually simple: drain, flush, and the fuel filter sorted.
A few miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them running on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the whole system: that is the work, and the way your car was driven counts as much as the miles. A school run to Shirley Infant School is one thing. A run as far as Southampton, under 3 miles away, is a very different task. So is any miles on the M271, under 3 miles from Shirley, where your engine has been running hard the whole time.
Driven till it complained. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Pull up where you are — on the verge on St James Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. A car pulled over soon very rarely has permanent damage, because the fuel drain and the flush, which still go first, take care of it.
Shirley people and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through more precise parts: that is how a newer diesel handles its fuel, so the lubrication counts for more, not less.
The myth that catches motorists out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Diesel in a petrol motor normally leaves a motor that will not run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally starts, ticks over and pulls away like nothing happened — all while its pump wears. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old workaround, supposed for another fault. What petrol has thinned remains thinned, and that petrol stays in your tank anyway.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump from the lines and your filter, where some of it ends up once the motor has run. That is why draining the tank yourself doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. Draining petrol into a can by the kerbside is also really hazardous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
It is rarely carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. One way only, because of the nozzles: the narrower petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally will not fit a petrol car. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
Routine and the car getting out of step is when it happens. A vehicle that is new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Two vehicles on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Millbrook (Hants). Precisely the moment it occurs: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Passat for the first time. Your hand repeats 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 around Shirley
- The label is what counts, 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.
- Plenty of motors state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on your first fill in any motor you don't know.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key if a household has one of each. So mark it.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems silly and it works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for motors without one. They are a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Spotting it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A weaker blend follows from less petrol in the tank, yet your next stage stays the same: do not start the vehicle.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Shirley?
In that case, there is only a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition off as well. Ask the attendants to help you push it away from the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that is Shell or somewhere else. What got in, about how much, and if it's run: tell us that when you call 0333 366 0103.
If it was AdBlue rather than petrol, say so. That is a different issue — corrosion and deposits and not lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Shirley.
Shirley petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be fair. Chiefly, your cost shifts with which one you're in. Next it is the proportion — how much petrol got in against how much that tank holds — and after that where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three questions: your fuel that was put in, the volume, and whether it's run. That is why. A range becomes a straight figure once the answers are in.
About Shirley itself
Shirley is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Southampton in Hampshire, sitting at an elevation of 28 metres above sea level. Shirley is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock and is situated near the coast, with nearby areas including Upper Shirley, Old Shirley, and Shirley Warren. Shirley is close to the city of Southampton, being only 1.7 miles away, and is approximately 69.1 miles from London. Shirley has a population of around 11,024 residents.
Shirley and Hampshire: where our fuel drain cover runs
Upper Shirley, Old Shirley and Shirley Warren are among the spots around Shirley that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Shirley's SO postcode area. You need not bring the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations we drain.
Still at the pump around Shirley?
The best place there is, then — that's where you are. Leave the vehicle turned off, and ring.