Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Teignmouth
Provided it has not been started, worry less than you probably are. Petrol resting in a diesel tank does nothing to the engine till something draws it through the system — the ignition priming your pump, the starter, or driving on its own. So the fair answer to the first query everyone in Teignmouth asks, "have I ruined it?", is usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to phone, with your engine left off, so it stays that way. The rest of this page sets out 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.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
On its way through a motor, diesel has two jobs. It lubricates first, and after that does it burn. Made to extremely fine gaps, your injectors and your pump rely on your diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. A pump running on a petrol mix is wearing itself out, since petrol is thinner than diesel and takes away the lubrication the 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 the clattering comes.
The shape of the problem is plain once you put those together. Not contact but movement is what causes the damage. Petrol in a tank is a fuel fault. The beginning of a mechanical problem 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.
Petrol in a diesel around Teignmouth: how bad is it? Four cases
Filled but not once started — the best it gets. Only that tank has petrol in it, so the job is clearing your tank and purging the system where the car stands. This situation can only really occur at a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Started for a second, or just your ignition on. Once primed, the fuel system has pulled petrol from that tank as far as the filter and the lines. Drain, flush, see to your filter: still normally easy.
Some miles driven, and your pump has spent every one of them running on diluted fuel. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way this work includes that tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole circuit. Driving the children to Shaldon Primary School is one sort of trip. Very different a second time: a trip to Exeter, under 15 miles away, or some mileage on the M5, under 10 miles from Teignmouth, where the motor kept labouring hard.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, rattling, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and your motor is telling you. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Den Road, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the vehicle there. What goes first is still the drain and flush-through, and that takes care of it, with permanent damage very unusual if a vehicle is stopped early.
Teignmouth motorists and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
False: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. A fuller tank of the same mix is all it gives, because topping up takes out nothing. The assumption behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Modern diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. At higher pressure, through finer parts: that's how a current diesel handles its fuel, so the protection counts more, not less.
One myth that catches people out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it generally won't run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, while the pump wears. Fine and running aren't the same at all.
Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It is an old workaround, supposed for another issue. It doesn't put back what petrol has diluted, and that petrol is still inside the tank after that.
The next start sends petrol back round the pump out of the lines and your filter, where some of it ends up once the engine has run. That is why draining your tank yourself doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. It's also really risky to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Why petrol in a diesel takes place at all
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and no one means to do it. The forecourt makes it easy: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol car at all. So the mistake runs one way.
When habit and your car stop matching, it happens. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A rushed fill en route to the nearest station with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. The hand does what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Teignmouth
- 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 counts.
- Inspect your filler flap. Many vehicles state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a car you don't know.
- Mark the key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make whilst you are thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the remainder. Count it as a safety net, and keep reading the petrol pump.
- The moment you realise, stop: less petrol inside your tank means a thinner mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still do not start the vehicle.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Teignmouth?
Then the order of things is short. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition off too. Ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's Tesco or anywhere else. Then call 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, about how much, and whether it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a separate fault, with its own page for Teignmouth, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Teignmouth costs more than another
Four different tasks sit behind the four situations above — which is why there's no fair single price. Which of them you are in is chiefly what shifts the cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a share of what your tank holds, then the place the vehicle is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
Three queries come first, before any quote, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. With the replies, you get a straight figure rather than a range.
About Teignmouth
Teignmouth is a coastal town in Devon, situated on the north bank of the River Teign estuary, with a population of around 12980 people. Teignmouth has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant, and the town is close to nearby places like Shaldon and Holcombe. Teignmouth sits at a low elevation of around 5 metres above sea level, looking out over the English Channel. Teignmouth is located near the city of Exeter, which is about 12 miles away.
Fuel drain cover across Devon, Teignmouth included
Our vans answering petrol in diesel calls around Teignmouth, in the TQ postcode area, also work the places around it, Shaldon, Ringmore and Holcombe among them. We drain where your car is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
Teignmouth: still at the pump?
Then you are in the best position there is. Leave the car switched off, then ring.