Petrol in a Diesel Car in Strichen: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you already are — provided no one has started the car. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the engine until something draws it through the fuel system — your ignition priming the pump, your starter, or driving itself. So the fair answer to the first query everyone around Strichen asks, "have I ruined it?", is normally no. Leave the engine off then phone Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The remainder of this page covers what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to tell how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you a second time.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Designed to very fine tolerances, the injectors and your pump depend on the diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Of those two tasks, petrol handles the first poorly and the second never. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, since petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication your fuel system depends on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where any rattling comes.
Put these together and the shape of the problem is plain. Not contact but movement is what does the damage. Petrol in the tank is a fuel issue. Once your pump has been labouring on that petrol, a mechanical problem has begun: anything shed by a pump that's grinding is carried onward to the injectors with the fuel.
Strichen, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to serious
Fuelled but not once started — as good as it gets. Being on a forecourt is what makes this possible: elsewhere, the car has been driven there to begin with. With that petrol kept inside the tank alone, it is emptied and rinsed right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
Started for a moment, or just the ignition on. Once primed, the fuel system has drawn petrol out of your tank as far as the fuel filter and the fuel lines. That's usually still an easy task — a drain, a flush, and your filter seen to.
A few miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them working on weakened fuel. Distance is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way this work runs to your tank, your lines, your filter and clean fuel through the whole system. A school run to the local primary school is one matter. A run as far as Aberdeen, under 50 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M90, over 50 miles from Strichen, where your engine has been working hard throughout.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone ragged. The engine is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it's the verge on High Street, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. The fuel drain and flush-through still come first, and they sort it out: if a vehicle is pulled over early, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Petrol in a diesel myths Strichen people hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank just carries more of the same mixture. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that guidance presumes.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the reverse. More precise components and higher pressure are how a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection matter more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." This is the one that fools drivers. The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel usually stops, because it will not run, and the harm stops there. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually will; meanwhile the pump grinds. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
An outdated fix for a separate fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." What petrol has thinned remains thinned, and the petrol remains in your tank anyway.
If the engine has been run, part of the petrol is in your filter and your lines, not that tank — and the next start pulls it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you are sorted" does not stand up. And, a can of petrol drained by the roadside is genuinely risky.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
It is seldom carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. A diesel nozzle mostly won't fit a petrol car, yet the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and just in that direction.
When routine and your car stop matching, it takes place. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps laid out differently. A rushed fill en route to the nearest station 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. The hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Next time you fill up around Strichen: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Check the petrol 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 motors state the fuel inside the filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on your first fill in a motor you don't know.
- Label the key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- It sounds daft and it does the trick: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler built to block 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.
- Less petrol makes a weaker mixture, and so stop as soon as you notice — while remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to fire it up.
Strichen: already put petrol in a diesel?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off too. The staff on the forecourt — whether at the nearest petrol station itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help push it away from the petrol pump if you ask. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, about how much, and if it has been run.
Corrosion and deposits form the trouble with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Strichen page.
What makes one Strichen petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
A fair single quote doesn't exist here: four situations, four separate tasks. The situation itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Next it's the share — how much petrol was put in against how much that tank takes — and after that where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely.
What got in, how much, and whether it has run — three questions our engineers ask before costing, not after, for precisely that reason. Their answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Strichen itself
Strichen is a village in Aberdeenshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 58 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Strichen lies approximately 30 miles northwest of Aberdeen and is surrounded by nearby places such as Newburgh, Mountsolie, and New Leeds. Strichen has a population of around 959 residents and is located in a scenic area of northeastern Scotland. Strichen is also relatively distant from major cities in England, with London being around 427 miles away.
Across Aberdeenshire and around Strichen: fuel drain cover
The teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs in Strichen, in the AB postcode area, also work the locations around it, Newburgh, Mountsolie and New Leeds among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all places our engineers drain, and the vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
Strichen: still at the pump?
The best spot there is, then — that's where you are. Keep it off. Phone.