Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Sturminster Marshall
Probably less than you are now — provided nobody has started the car. Till your ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or the vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just rests there and does nothing. Which means the truthful reply to that first Sturminster Marshall query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To leave it that way, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor switched off. Below, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it might have got, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Diesel does two tasks on its way through a motor. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. The high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors are built to extremely fine gaps, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from wearing down against one another.
Poorly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. It is runnier than diesel and takes away the protection the fuel system depends on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is made to resist igniting under compression, which is the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
Taken together, they show the shape the trouble takes. It's circulation that causes the damage, not contact. Where the petrol is only in that tank, it's an issue of fuel, nothing more. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been labouring on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to your injectors downstream.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios we see in Sturminster Marshall
Fuelled, and never started: no case is better. At a forecourt, and truly only there, the petrol is still confined to that tank — because anywhere else your car was driven to reach it. The job is draining and rinsing on the spot.
Started for a second, or only the ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the fuel lines and filter already contain petrol that came from that tank. Normally nothing more than draining, purging and seeing to your filter, and so still straightforward.
Your pump now spent a few miles on weakened fuel — that's what driving the car does. How hard the car was driven counts as much as how far, and this work takes in the tank, the lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire system. On the school run to Sturminster Marshall First School, the miles is short. A run as far as Salisbury, under 25 miles away, is a very different task. So is any mileage on the M27, under 25 miles from Sturminster Marshall, where your engine has been labouring hard throughout.
Driven till it complained. Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That's the engine telling you its fuel has stopped behaving like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Ball's Lane, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. A vehicle stopped early very rarely has long-term damage, because the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, take care of it.
Sturminster Marshall people and that petrol in a diesel stories they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — your tank simply carries more of the same blend. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance supposes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. Protection counts more on current diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through smaller parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that trips up more people than any other. The driver of a petrol motor fed diesel normally stops, because it will not run, and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst the pump grinds. Running does not mean fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a distinct issue. What petrol has thinned remains thinned, and the petrol stays inside that tank anyway.
If the motor has run, part of the petrol is in the fuel filter and your lines, not that tank — and your next start sends it right back through the pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you are sorted" does not stand up. It is also really dangerous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
No one does it on purpose, and it is rarely carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle, but the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake easy, and just in that direction.
It occurs when routine and the car stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Racing for a train outside Hamworthy and filling up en route. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Megane after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it occurs. Your hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Sturminster Marshall
- The label is what matters, so check the pump rather than the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- Check the filler flap. Many cars state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any car you do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key achieves more than any amount of meaning to remember, in a household with one of each.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump. It seems silly and it works.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels come with a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Spotting it mid-fill? Stop at once. A thinner mix results from less petrol inside that tank, but your next step stays the same: do not fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel in Sturminster Marshall already?
The order of things is brief, then. Don't start the car, and do not switch your ignition on. If you're still on the forecourt — Esso or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it's a separate problem, with its own page for Sturminster Marshall, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
What makes one Sturminster Marshall petrol in a diesel task cost more than the next
There is no fair single price for this, because the four situations above are four different jobs. Mostly, the cost moves with which situation you're in. Next it is the share — how much petrol went in against how much that tank holds — and after that where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely.
That is why our technicians ask three queries before pricing rather than after: what was put in, how much, and if it has run. The answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Sturminster Marshall
Sturminster Marshall is a village in Dorset, situated on the shores of a lake at an elevation of around 25 metres. Sturminster Marshall sits near the villages of Newton Peveril, Henbury, and Shapwick, and is approximately 22 miles from Salisbury. Sturminster Marshall has a population of around 889 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Sturminster Marshall is located in the South West region of England, about 97 miles from London.
Across Dorset and around Sturminster Marshall: fuel drain cover
Our vans answering petrol in diesel calls in Sturminster Marshall, in the BH postcode area, equally work the spots near it, Newton Peveril, Henbury and Shapwick among them. Our engineers drain wherever the vehicle is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
Still at the petrol pump around Sturminster Marshall?
Then you're in the best place there is. Call, and keep it switched off.