Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Swaffham
Probably less than you are now — provided no one has started it. Until your ignition primes your pump, the starter turns, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to the first Swaffham question — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To keep it that way, ring Petrol in Diesel then leave the engine alone. Below, this page sets out what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you again.
What petrol in a diesel does to your engine
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two things at once. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Designed to very fine gaps, the injectors and the pump depend on the diesel moving through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump on the mixture wearing itself. It's equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the rattling.
Combined, those make the shape of the trouble plain. The damage is done by movement, not by contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, carried by your fuel, into the injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical fault starts.
Petrol in a diesel around Swaffham: how serious is it? Four cases
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. That petrol is inside the tank and just the tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car stands. This is the one situation that can only truly occur at a forecourt, since anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or just the ignition on. Once primed, the system has drawn petrol out of that tank as far as your filter and the lines. Drain, flush, deal with the filter: still normally easy.
Those few miles driven meant your pump labouring on fuel thinned by petrol throughout. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the whole system: that's this work, and the way the car was driven counts as much as the distance. On the school run to Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, Swaffham, the distance is short. Driving as far as Ely, under 25 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any mileage on the M11, under 50 miles from Swaffham, with the engine labouring hard the whole time.
Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. What you are hearing is the engine signalling fuel that no longer runs like diesel. Stop on the spot — on the verge on Market Place, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. The fuel drain and flush-through still come first, and they sort it out: if a vehicle is pulled over quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
Stories Swaffham drivers hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — the tank simply carries more of the same blend. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and closer to the opposite. At higher pressure, through finer components: that is how a current diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication counts more, not less.
The myth that catches motorists out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Any petrol engine fed diesel generally will not run, so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually will; meanwhile the pump grinds. Being able to run isn't proof of being fine.
An old workaround for a separate fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It does not put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still inside that tank after that.
If the motor has run, part of the petrol sits in the fuel filter and the lines, not your tank — and your next start pulls it right back through your pump. So the myth "drain your tank yourself and you're sorted" does not hold. Also, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is genuinely risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
It is seldom carelessness, and no one does it on purpose. The petrol nozzle is the slimmer of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the mistake runs one way.
Habit and your car getting out of step is when it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a motor that is brand new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. A train to catch, and a hurried fill en route to the nearest station. A new-to-you diesel Renault Megane, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it occurs. With rain, a call coming in, or a car full of children to deal with, your hand simply does what it has always done.
Swaffham motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — yet not on each forecourt. Go by the label on the petrol pump, not the colour.
- Check your filler flap. Many motors state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any motor you do not know.
- One of each in the house? Mark your key to your diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — since intending to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new car, say "diesel" aloud. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make while your mind is on something else, so your phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler designed to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the remainder. Count it as a backstop, then keep reading the pump.
- Less petrol makes a thinner mixture, and so stop as soon as you realise — while remembering that the next stage is unchanged. It's still not to fire it up.
Petrol already in a diesel in Swaffham? Begin here
The order of things is short, then. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition off as well. If you are still on the forecourt — BP or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you roll it away from the pump. Phone 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — the fuel, the approximate quantity, and whether it's run.
Corrosion and deposits are the trouble with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Swaffham page.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Swaffham costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate tasks, so no single price for this would be fair. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Where the vehicle is counts too, and whether our van can safely reach it, after the proportion of petrol to what your tank holds.
Three questions come first, before quoting, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. The answers turn a range into a straight figure.
About Swaffham, briefly
Swaffham is a town in the eastern part of Norfolk, situated inland at an elevation of around 75 metres. Swaffham lies near several smaller settlements, including Tumbler Hill, Sporle, and Drymere, and is approximately 24.8 miles from the city of Ely. Swaffham has a population of around 7357 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Swaffham is also relatively close to London, being about 86.1 miles away.
Fuel drain cover across Norfolk, Swaffham included
The vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Swaffham, in the PE postcode area, equally work the places near it, Tumbler Hill, Sporle and Drymere included. The car doesn't need to come to us: our engineers drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
In Swaffham and still at the pump?
In that case, you could not be in a better position. Keep it turned off, and ring.