South Barrwood: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
If it has not been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor until something pulls it through the system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or the drive on its own. So the honest answer to the first question everyone in South Barrwood asks, "have I wrecked it?", is usually no. Keep it that way: leave the engine off and call Petrol in Diesel. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has gone, and how to stop it from happening a second time: that's the remainder of this page.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
On its way through an engine, diesel has two tasks. It protects first, and after that does it burn. Extremely fine gaps go into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure pump, and just your diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Of those two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second never. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the protection the fuel system depends on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where the rattling starts.
Put these together and the shape of the problem is clear. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into your injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has been working on the petrol is where a mechanical fault begins.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our technicians see in South Barrwood
Filled but not once started — the best it gets. Being on a forecourt is what makes this possible: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With that petrol kept in the tank alone, it's emptied and flushed right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
Started for a second, or just the ignition on. With the system primed, the fuel lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from that tank. Still usually simple: drain, flush, and your filter dealt with.
Your pump has spent a few miles on diluted fuel — that is what driving the car does. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the entire system: that is this work, and the way the vehicle was driven matters as much as the miles. The school run to the local primary school is one thing. Driving as far as Glasgow, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any miles on the M80, under 3 miles from South Barrwood, with your engine working hard the whole time.
Driven on till it complained — rattling, smoke, a ragged idle, a soft throttle. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and your motor is telling you. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Barrpath, a lay-by, a side street — then leave it there. The fuel drain and flush still go first, and they take care of it: if a car is pulled over quickly, long-term damage is very unusual.
Petrol in a diesel stories South Barrwood drivers hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Nothing comes out when you top up — that tank simply carries more of the same blend. The idea behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A current diesel sends its fuel through smaller components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
This is the one that fools drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." A petrol motor fed diesel generally won't run, and so the driver stops and the harm stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually will; meanwhile the pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It's an old workaround for a separate fault. What petrol has thinned stays thinned, and the petrol stays inside the tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go straight back through the pump at your next start. Clearing petrol into a can at the roadside is also truly hazardous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. 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 mistake runs one way.
It takes place when habit and the vehicle stop matching. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two cars on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Fuelling up in a hurry en route to Croy, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: precisely when it takes place. The hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Next time you fill up around South Barrwood: preventing petrol in a diesel
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — yet not on each forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Inspect the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any car you do not know.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key if a house has one of each. So label it.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems silly and it does the trick.
- Put the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- The moment you notice, stop: less petrol inside your tank makes a thinner mix. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel around South Barrwood already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off as well. Ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's Shell or somewhere else. Ring 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the rough volume, and if it has run.
Corrosion and deposits form the trouble with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own South Barrwood page.
What makes one South Barrwood petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
There's no honest single price for this, since the four situations above are four separate tasks. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Next it's the share — how much petrol was put in against how much the tank takes — and then where the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely.
What was put in, how much, and if it's run — three questions our technicians ask before pricing, not after, for exactly that reason. A range turns into a straight figure when those replies are in.
About South Barrwood
South Barrwood is a suburban area situated on the riverside in North Lanarkshire, with a mix of residential properties including predominantly flat-style housing. South Barrwood sits at an elevation of 69 metres, close to the nearby communities of Barrwood and North Barrwood. South Barrwood is located near Auchinstarry and is approximately 10.6 miles from Glasgow, making it a commuter-friendly location. South Barrwood has a population of around 2920 residents.
Across North Lanarkshire and in South Barrwood: fuel drain cover
Barrwood, North Barrwood and Auchinstarry are among the locations near South Barrwood that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel calls across South Barrwood's G postcode area. Our technicians drain where the car is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
In South Barrwood and still at the petrol pump?
Then you're in the best spot there is. Keep it off. Ring.