How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Temple Ewell
Unstarted? Then less worried than you likely feel. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the motor until something draws it through your fuel system — your ignition priming your pump, the starter, or the drive itself. So the honest answer to the first question everyone in Temple Ewell asks, "have I ruined it?", is generally no. To keep it like that, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor switched off. Below, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it may have got, and how to stop it happening to you a second time.
The engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on
Passing through a motor, diesel is doing two things at once. It combusts, and before it ignites it protects. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors from wearing against each other is the diesel passing through them — they are designed to extremely fine clearances.
The second task petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does badly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, so a pump running on that mixture wearing itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you get the clattering.
Seen together, they make clear the shape the problem takes. It is movement that does the harm, not contact. Where that petrol is only inside that tank, it is an issue of fuel, nothing more. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Temple Ewell, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to significant
Filled up, never started. The best case there can be. That petrol is inside that tank and only the tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle stands. This is the one scenario that can only truly happen on a forecourt, since anywhere else the vehicle has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. Petrol has come out of that tank and got to the filter and your lines, since your system has been bled. Normally nothing more than draining, cleaning and seeing to your filter, so still simple.
Driven a few miles. Now your pump has spent those miles working on diluted fuel. The work is the tank, the lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the whole system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. On the school run to Temple Ewell Church of England Primary School, the mileage is short. Any mileage on the M20, under 10 miles from Temple Ewell, means the engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Canterbury, under 15 miles away, makes a very different task too.
Knocking, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and your motor is telling you. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Templeside, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle there. The fuel drain and flush still come first, and they deal with it: when a car is stopped quickly, permanent damage is very rare.
What Temple Ewell motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It doesn't. Nothing comes out when you top up — that tank simply carries more of the same blend. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, however much that advice assumes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the opposite. Protection counts more on newer diesels, not less, since their fuel passes through smaller parts at higher pressure.
This is the one that fools motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." A petrol motor fed diesel usually won't run, and so the motorist stops and the harm stops with them. While your pump wears, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened. Being able to run isn't proof of being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, borrowed from a fix from years ago, for a separate issue. None of what petrol diluted is put back by it — and later, your tank still contains that petrol.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." After the motor has run, some of that petrol is no longer inside the tank: it is in your filter and the lines, and it goes right back through the pump on your next start. And, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is truly risky.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. A diesel nozzle generally won't go into a petrol motor, but the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error easy, and just in that direction.
When habit and the car stop matching, it occurs. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car 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 hurried fill en route to Kearsney with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it takes place. Add a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and the hand wins.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up around Temple Ewell
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Check the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- Inspect your filler flap. Many motors state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in a car you don't know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a household with one of each.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fuel a hired or new car, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, so tuck the phone away then keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop at once. A thinner mixture follows from less petrol in your tank, but the next stage remains the same: don't fire it up.
Petrol already in a diesel around Temple Ewell? Start here
The order of things is brief, then. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off too. Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that's Esso or somewhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what went in, about how much, and if it has been run.
If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That's a separate issue — corrosion and deposits and not lost protection — and it has its own page for Temple Ewell.
Temple Ewell petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
There's no fair single quote for this, because the four situations above are four different jobs. Mostly, your cost shifts with which situation you are in. Next it's the ratio — how much petrol went in against how much your tank holds — and then where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three queries: the fuel that was put in, its amount, and whether it has run. That's why. The replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About Temple Ewell, briefly
Temple Ewell is a suburban area in Kent, situated near the coast and approximately 12 miles from Canterbury. Temple Ewell has a population of around 1763 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Temple Ewell sits at an elevation of 39 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside and the nearby River. Temple Ewell is also close to other local places, including Kearsney and Whitfield.
Temple Ewell and Kent: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Petrol in diesel call-outs around Temple Ewell — part of the CT postcode area — go to vans that also cover the spots round it, Kearsney, River and Whitfield among them. The vehicle doesn't need to come to us: our technicians drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
Still at the petrol pump around Temple Ewell?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Keep the car turned off, and ring.