How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Steeton
Unstarted? Then less anxious than you probably feel. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first question anyone around Steeton asks, and the honest answer is usually no, because petrol left in a diesel tank hurts nothing until it is drawn through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. To keep the vehicle like that, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave the engine alone. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Diesel has two jobs on its way through an engine. It lubricates to begin with, and only then does it burn. Built to extremely fine clearances, the fuel injectors and the pump rely on your diesel moving through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Petrol does the first task badly and the second not at all. It is runnier than diesel and takes away the protection your fuel system hinges 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 opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That's where the clattering comes from.
Together, those make the shape of the problem plain. It's circulation that does the damage, not contact. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the injectors downstream.
Petrol in a diesel in Steeton: how bad is it? Four cases
Fuelled but not once started — the best it gets. That petrol is inside your tank and just that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle stands. This is the one situation that can only really happen at a forecourt, because anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Started for a moment, or just the ignition on. The system has been primed, so petrol has left the tank and reached the fuel filter and your lines. Normally nothing more than emptying, purging and seeing to the filter, so still easy.
Driven a couple of miles. Now your pump has spent those miles labouring on thinned fuel. The work is the tank, your lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire system, and how hard the car was driven matters as much as how far. On the school run to Steeton Primary School, the distance is small. Very different a second time: a trip to Bradford, under 15 miles away, or some miles on the M65, under 15 miles from Steeton, where your engine never stopped working hard.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Pull up where you are — on the verge on St Stephen's Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it. The fuel drain and flush still come first, and they deal with it: when a vehicle is pulled over quickly, long-term damage is very unusual.
What Steeton drivers get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. A newer diesel runs its fuel through finer components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
One myth that catches drivers out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it generally won't run, and so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, while your pump grinds. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
Myth: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It is an old workaround, supposed for another problem. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and the petrol is still in your tank afterwards.
If the motor has run, part of the petrol is in the filter and the fuel lines, not the tank — and the next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't hold. Emptying petrol into a can by the roadside is also really risky.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
No one does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. So the slip runs one way.
Habit and the car getting out of step is when it happens. Any vehicle that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. Two vehicles on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. Fuelling up in a rush on the way to Steeton & Silsden, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Add a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Steeton
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in a strange motor is the time to check your filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many motors state the fuel they take.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember, for a home with one of each.
- It sounds daft and it works: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for vehicles without one. They are a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol inside your tank makes a thinner mixture. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to start the car.
Steeton: already put petrol in a diesel?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Never crank it, and do not switch your ignition on. Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that is Shell or anywhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what was put in, about how much, and if it has been run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost protection, make it a different problem — Steeton has a page just for it.
Steeton petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
Four different tasks lie behind the four situations above — which is why there is no fair single price. Mostly, the cost shifts with which situation you are in. Where the vehicle is counts too, and whether a technician can safely get to it, after the proportion of petrol to what your tank takes.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that got in, the quantity, and whether it has run. That is why. A range turns into a straight figure once those answers are in.
About Steeton, for a moment
Steeton is a village in West Yorkshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 113 metres. Steeton lies approximately 10 miles from Bradford and 181 miles from London, with nearby places including Eastburn, Whitley Head, and Eastburn. Steeton has a population of around 2468 people and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing. Steeton is a small but distinct community within the wider West Yorkshire area.
Across West Yorkshire and around Steeton: fuel drain cover
Steeton sits in the BD postcode area, and the vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots around it as well — Eastburn Br, Whitley Head and Eastburn among them. No need to move your vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places where we work.
Steeton: still at the pump?
Nothing beats it: that is where you are. Keep it off. Phone.