How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Steyning
Provided it hasn't been started, you can worry far less than you likely are. Till your ignition primes the pump, your starter turns, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just rests there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to the first Steyning question — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. To leave it that way, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor switched off. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you never repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Passing through an engine, diesel is doing two jobs at once. It combusts, and before it ignites it lubricates. Built to very fine clearances, your injectors and the pump rely on your diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. A pump running on a petrol blend is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the protection your fuel system relies on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that is where any clattering comes.
The shape of the problem is plain once you put those together. Not contact but movement is what does the damage. Petrol in the tank is a fuel issue. Once the pump has been labouring on that petrol, a mechanical fault has started: anything shed by a pump that is grinding is carried onward to the fuel injectors with your fuel.
Steyning, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to major
The best case there is: filled up, never started. At a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still limited to that tank — since everywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The task is draining and flushing on the spot.
A moment's running, or just your ignition on. With the fuel system primed, your lines and filter already hold petrol that has come from the tank. Usually nothing more than emptying, flushing and seeing to the fuel filter, so still straightforward.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent those miles working on diluted fuel. How hard the car was driven counts as much as how far, and the work takes in that tank, the lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. Driving the kids to Steyning CofE Primary School is one kind of trip. Very different again: a trip to Brighton and Hove, under 10 miles away, or any miles on the M23, under 15 miles from Steyning, where the engine kept running hard.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. That is your engine telling you its fuel no longer is acting like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on Elm Grove Lane. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that deals with it, with lasting damage very unusual if a car is pulled over soon.
Steyning motorists and the petrol in a diesel stories they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mix. The idea behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. At higher pressure, through finer parts: that's how a newer diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that catches people. Diesel in a petrol motor generally means a motor that will not run: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Whilst the pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened. Fine and running aren't the same thing.
An old fix for a different problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." The petrol is still inside that tank afterwards, and whatever it has weakened is not put back.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you're sorted." Once the engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer in your tank: it is in your filter and the lines, and it goes right back through your pump at your next start. Also, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is genuinely risky.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs at all
It's seldom carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. 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 error runs one way.
When routine and your car stop matching, it happens. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that is new. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Lancing. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. The hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Steyning
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in a new vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many vehicles state which fuel to use.
- One of each in the household? Mark the key to your diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — because meaning to remember isn't enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. It sounds silly and it works.
- While you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck your phone away.
- Add-on devices are available for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a backstop only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol inside that tank makes a thinner mixture. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Steyning: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then, there is just a short order of things. Never fire it up, and do not turn your ignition on. If you are still at the forecourt — BP or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you push the car clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what was put in, about how much, and if it's been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That's a different problem — corrosion and deposits and not lost protection — and it has its own page for Steyning.
Why one petrol in a diesel task around Steyning costs more than another
Four separate tasks lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no fair single quote. Chiefly, your cost shifts with which situation you are in. Where the car is matters too, and whether a technician can safely get to it, after the share of petrol to what that tank holds.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three queries: the fuel that went in, the volume, and whether it has run. That is why. Those replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Steyning itself
Steyning is a town situated on the River Adur in West Sussex, with a population of around 6580 people. Steyning sits at an elevation of 21 metres, close to the South Downs National Park and near the towns of Bramber and Upper Beeding. Steyning has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near the city of Brighton and Hove, about 9 miles away. Steyning is also within commuting distance of London, at around 43 miles from the capital.
Steyning and West Sussex: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Our teams answering petrol in diesel jobs around Steyning, in the BN postcode area, equally work the locations around it, Bramber, Upper Beeding and Botolphs among them. The vehicle does not 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.
Steyning: still at the pump?
Nothing beats it: that's where you now are. Call, and leave it turned off.