Petrol in a Diesel Car in Spittlegate: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you are now — provided no one has started the vehicle. Until the ignition primes your pump, your starter cranks, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just rests there and does nothing. Which means the honest reply to the first Spittlegate query — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. Keep it like that: leave the motor off then ring Petrol in Diesel. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you don't do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
On its way through an engine, diesel does two jobs. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. The high-pressure pump and the injectors are designed to very fine tolerances, and your diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing down against one another.
Petrol does the first task poorly and the second not at all. It's runnier than diesel and strips away the protection your fuel system rests on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is designed to resist igniting under compression, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That's where the knocking comes from.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. After your pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical fault has begun: whatever is shed by a pump that's wearing travels downstream to your injectors with your fuel.
Spittlegate, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to major
Filled but never started — as good as it gets. Just the tank has petrol in it, so the job is draining the tank and rinsing the system where your car sits. This scenario can only really occur on a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or just your ignition on. Once primed, the fuel system has pulled petrol from the tank as far as the filter and the lines. Usually nothing more than clearing, flushing and seeing to your filter, and so still straightforward.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent those miles labouring on thinned fuel. The work is that tank, your lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. On the school run to St Anne's Church of England Primary School, Grantham, the mileage is short. Any distance on the M1, under 50 miles from Spittlegate, means the engine working hard throughout, and a run to Nottingham, under 25 miles away, is a very different job as well.
Driven on until it complained — knocking, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and your engine is telling you. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Edward Street. Long-term damage is very unusual if a car is stopped soon, and the drain and flush-through that still go first sort it out.
Myths Spittlegate people hear about petrol in a diesel
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Nothing is removed by topping up — you are left with a bigger tank, still the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. 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 people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it usually will not 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 does; meanwhile the pump grinds. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an outdated fix for a distinct fault. It doesn't put back what petrol has diluted, and the petrol is still inside the tank after that.
"Drain it yourself and you are sorted" — a myth, since after it has been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, ready to go right back through your pump at your next start. Besides, petrol cleared into a can by the road is genuinely risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it happen?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. A diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake easy, and only in that direction.
It happens when routine and the car stop matching. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to Grantham. A new-to-you diesel Skoda Octavia, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it occurs. With rain, a call coming in, or children to deal with, the hand just does what it has always done.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel on your next fill-up in Spittlegate
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Plenty of vehicles state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, so check it on your first fill in a car you don't know.
- One of each in the household? Label your key to the diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because intending to remember is not enough.
- 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 pump. It sounds daft and it does the trick.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so put your phone away then keep your mind on the pump.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the rest. Treat it as a backstop, and keep reading the petrol pump.
- Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol in your tank makes a thinner mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start it.
Spittlegate: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition off too. Still on the forecourt, at Esso or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle clear of the pump. What went in, about how much, and if it has run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate fault — Spittlegate has a page all for it.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Spittlegate costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four different tasks, so no single quote for this would be fair. Which of them you're in is chiefly what moves the cost. Where the car is counts too, and whether our van can safely get to it, after the proportion of petrol to what the tank holds.
What went in, how much, and if it has run — three queries we ask before costing, not after, for exactly that reason. Given the replies, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Spittlegate and where it is
Spittlegate is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Lincolnshire, with an elevation of around 63 metres. Spittlegate lies near the town of Grantham and is close to other nearby places such as Earlesfield and Cherry Orchard. Spittlegate has a mix of housing types, but terraced housing is predominant in the area. Spittlegate is located approximately 21.8 miles from Nottingham and 98.7 miles from London.
Fuel drain cover across Lincolnshire, Spittlegate included
Spittlegate waits in the NG postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots near it as well — Grantham, Earlesfield and Cherry Orchard among them. No need to move your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all spots where we work.
Spittlegate: still at the petrol pump?
Then, you couldn't be in a better position. Switched off it stays; then ring.