Petrol in a Diesel Car in South Tankerton: How Worried Should You Be?
Provided it has not been started, worry far less than you probably are. Till the ignition primes the pump, your starter cranks, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply waits there and does no harm. Which means the truthful reply to that first South Tankerton query — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. To leave the vehicle that way, phone Petrol in Diesel then leave your motor alone. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it's travelled, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that is the remainder of this page.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. It protects first, and after that does it burn. The high-pressure pump and the injectors are designed to extremely fine tolerances, and the diesel passing through them is what keeps those surfaces from wearing down against each other.
Petrol handles the first job poorly and the second not at all. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, because petrol is thinner than diesel and strips out the protection your fuel system relies on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where the clattering comes.
Seen together, they show what shape the trouble has. Contact doesn't do the damage — circulation does. Where that petrol is only in that tank, it's a fault of fuel, nothing more. After your pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical problem has started: whatever is shed by a pump that is wearing down travels downstream to the injectors with the fuel.
South Tankerton, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to significant
Filled but never started — as good as it gets. At a forecourt, and really only there, that petrol is still limited to that tank — since everywhere else the car was driven to get to it. The job is draining and flushing on the spot.
A brief spell of running, or just your ignition on. Petrol has left your tank and got to the filter and the lines, since your system has been primed. Still usually simple: drain, flush, and the filter seen to.
A few miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them labouring on weakened fuel. How hard your car was driven counts as much as how far, and the work covers your tank, your lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. Driving the kids to St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Whitstable is one sort of trip. Very different again: a trip to Canterbury, under 10 miles away, or any mileage on the M2, under 10 miles from South Tankerton, where the engine kept labouring hard.
Driven till it complained. Knocking, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That's your engine telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Summerfield Avenue, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it where it is. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush, and that deals with it, with lasting damage very rare if a car is pulled over quickly.
What South Tankerton people get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a fuller tank, still the same mixture. That guidance assumes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It does not.
Not so: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Protection counts more on current diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through smaller parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that catches more drivers than any other. The driver of a petrol motor fed diesel normally stops, because it will not run, and the harm stops there. Whilst your pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened. Running doesn't mean fine.
An old fix for a separate issue lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." None of what petrol diluted is put back by it — and later, that tank still contains the petrol.
Once the motor has been run, part of the petrol is in your filter and the lines, not that tank — and the next start pulls it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" does not stand up. Emptying petrol into a can by the roadside is also genuinely dangerous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. A diesel nozzle mostly will not fit a petrol vehicle, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error easy, and only in one direction.
Habit and the car getting out of step is when it takes place. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Whitstable with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a driver used to petrol: precisely when it happens. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and the hand does what it has always done.
Next time you fill up around South Tankerton: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- The label is what counts, so check the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- Check the filler flap. Plenty of vehicles state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in a car you do not know.
- Label the key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Before the nozzle comes off the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" out loud. Daft, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Whilst you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- The moment you realise, stop: less petrol inside your tank means a weaker blend. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel around South Tankerton already?
The order of things is short, then. Don't switch the ignition on, and don't fire it up. Still at the forecourt, at Tesco or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what was put in, about how much, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own South Tankerton page.
One petrol in a diesel job in South Tankerton costs more than another. Why?
The four situations above are four different tasks, so no single price for this would be fair. Which of them you are in is chiefly what moves your cost. The proportion matters next, meaning how much of that tank is petrol, and then the position of your car and whether reaching it is safe for a technician.
That is why our technicians ask three queries before quoting instead of after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. The replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About South Tankerton, briefly
South Tankerton is a suburban area located on the coast of Kent, with an elevation of 22 metres above sea level. South Tankerton sits near the city of Canterbury, approximately 5.4 miles away, and is part of the larger Tankerton area. South Tankerton has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. South Tankerton is also close to other nearby places, including Church Street and Thurston Park.
Fuel drain cover around South Tankerton and across Kent
The vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs around South Tankerton, in the CT postcode area, equally work the locations near it, Church Street, Tankerton and Thurston Park among them. The car doesn't need to move to us: our technicians drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
At the pump in South Tankerton, still?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Turned off it remains; then call.