Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Talke
Not started? Then less worried than you probably are. Till the ignition primes your pump, the starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just rests there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to that first Talke question — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To keep the car like that, call Petrol in Diesel then leave the engine alone. The remainder of this page explains what petrol really 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.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two things at the same time. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Very fine tolerances go into the injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and only your diesel flowing through keeps those surfaces from grinding together.
Petrol handles the first job poorly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, leaving a pump on the mixture to wear itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is why you get the knocking.
Put these together and the shape of the trouble is clear. It's movement that causes the damage, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. Once your pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical issue has begun: anything shed by a pump that's wearing down is carried onward to your injectors with your fuel.
Petrol in a diesel in Talke: how serious is it? Four cases
Filled up, not once started. The best case there is. That petrol is in that tank and just that tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the car stands. This is the one situation that can only really take place at a forecourt, since anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Started for a moment, or only your ignition on. Petrol has come out of the tank and reached the filter and the fuel lines, since your system has been primed. Normally nothing more than emptying, rinsing and seeing to your filter, and so still simple.
Those few miles on the road meant the pump labouring on fuel diluted by petrol the whole way. The work is that tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. Driving the children to St Saviour's CofE Academy is one sort of trip. Very different a second time: a run to Stoke-on-Trent, under 10 miles away, or some distance on the M6, under 3 miles from Talke, where the engine kept running hard.
Clattering, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer behaving like diesel. Pull up where you are — on the verge on Merelake Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. Long-term damage is very uncommon if a car is stopped quickly, and the drain and flush that still go first deal with it.
Petrol in a diesel myths Talke motorists 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 bigger tank of the same mixture. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that advice supposes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. At higher pressure, through more precise components: that's how a current diesel handles its fuel, so the lubrication matters for more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that catches more drivers than any other. A petrol engine fed diesel normally 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, which it usually does; meanwhile the pump grinds. Running is not the same as fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." It's an old fix for a separate issue. That petrol is still inside the tank after that, and whatever it has weakened is not put back.
Myth: "Drain the tank yourself and you are sorted." After your engine has been run, some of the petrol is no longer inside the tank: it is in the fuel filter and your lines, and it goes right back through the pump on the next start. On top of that, petrol cleared into a can by the road is truly dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel take place?
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 won't go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the error runs one way.
When routine and the car stop matching, it occurs. Any vehicle that is new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. The pumps in a different order on a familiar forecourt. Rushing for a train outside Kidsgrove and fuelling up en route. Years of petrol motors behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and your hand does what it has always done.
Talke motorists: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — but not on each forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar car is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many vehicles state which fuel they take.
- 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 seems silly 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.
- Put your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop at once. A thinner mix follows from less petrol in the tank, yet the next stage stays the same: do not start the vehicle.
Petrol already in a diesel around Talke? Begin here
The order of things is short, then. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. Still on the forecourt, at Tesco or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you push the car clear of the petrol pump. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and whether it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate issue — Talke has a page all for it.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Talke costs more than another
Four different tasks lie behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single quote. The situation itself does most of the work of moving the cost. The proportion matters next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the location of the car and whether reaching it is safe for a technician.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. With those answers, you get a straight figure rather than a range.
About Talke, for a moment
Talke is a village in Staffordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 196 metres, approximately 5 miles from Stoke-on-Trent. Talke has a population of around 1830 people, with predominantly semi-detached housing. Talke is located near other small settlements such as Coalpit Hill and Hollins, and is about 141 miles northwest of London. Talke sits in a region of Staffordshire that has been shaped by its industrial heritage and rural landscape.
Fuel drain cover in Talke and across Staffordshire
Our vans answering petrol in diesel calls in Talke, in the ST postcode area, equally work the places around it, Coalpit Hill, Hollins and Talke Pits among them. The vehicle does not need to move to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
In Talke and still at the pump?
Then, you could not be in a better position. Phone, and leave it turned off.