Petrol in a Diesel Car in The Rectory: How Worried Should You Be?
Less than you probably are, if it has not been started. Till your ignition primes your pump, the starter cranks, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to the first The Rectory query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To leave it that way, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors from grinding against each other is your diesel passing through them — they're made to extremely fine tolerances.
Petrol handles the first task poorly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump running on the mixture to wear itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the knocking.
Put these together and the shape of the problem is plain. The harm is done by circulation, not by contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to your injectors downstream.
The Rectory, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to significant
Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there can be. Being at a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, your car has been driven there to begin with. With the petrol held inside your tank alone, it is cleared and cleaned right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
Your ignition turned on, or a short start. Petrol has left that tank and reached the fuel filter and your lines, since the system has been primed. Still usually straightforward: drain, flush, and your filter sorted.
Those few miles driven were your pump running on fuel thinned by petrol the whole way. Mileage is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts equally. Either way the work runs to your tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the entire circuit. Short trips, like the school run to William Hildyard Church of England Primary and Nursery School, are one thing. Very different once more: a run to Peterborough, under 10 miles away, or any distance on the Great North Road, under 10 miles from The Rectory, where the engine kept labouring hard.
Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven till it complained. The fuel is not behaving like diesel any more, and the engine is saying so. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Forge Court, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the car there. The drain and flush-through still go first, and they sort it out: when a car is pulled over soon, long-term damage is very unusual.
Petrol in a diesel stories The Rectory people hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed when you top up — that tank simply carries more of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice supposes.
Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A modern diesel sends its fuel through smaller components at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel usually stops, since it will not run, 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 your pump wears. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It's an outdated workaround for a separate problem. None of what petrol diluted is put back by it — and afterwards, that tank still holds the petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the fuel filter and lines, waiting to go right back through your pump on your next start. Besides, petrol drained into a can by the road is truly hazardous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. One way only, because of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol car. That's how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
Routine and the car getting out of step is how it takes place. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two motors on one drive, one petrol, one diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Stamford with a train to catch. Years of petrol vehicles 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 kids, and your hand does what it has always done.
The Rectory motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, but not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- Inspect your filler flap. Plenty of motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on the first fill in any motor you don't know.
- Label the key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you pick up the nozzle — every time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make while your mind is on something else, so the phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices are available for the rest. Count it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- As soon as you realise, stop: less petrol inside your tank means a weaker mixture. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't fire it up.
Petrol already in a diesel around The Rectory? Begin here
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Leave it unstarted, with the ignition switched off as well. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at The Co-operative itself or wherever you filled up — will normally help roll it away from the petrol pump if you ask. Ring 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the approximate volume, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits form the problem with AdBlue, where petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own The Rectory page.
The Rectory petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
The four scenarios above are four separate jobs, so no single price for this would be honest. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which one you are in. The proportion counts next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the position of the vehicle and whether reaching it is safe for a van.
What went in, how much, and if it's run — three questions our technicians ask before costing, not after, for exactly that reason. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure.
About The Rectory itself
The Rectory is a locality situated on the riverside in Lincolnshire, with an elevation of around 8 metres. The Rectory lies near the city of Peterborough, approximately 8.2 miles away, and is close to nearby places such as Market Deeping and Deeping Gate. The Rectory has a population of around 3618 people and predominantly features detached housing. The Rectory is located in the East Midlands region, about 81.5 miles from London.
Across Lincolnshire and in The Rectory: fuel drain cover
The Rectory waits in the PE postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the locations near it as well — Market Deeping, Deeping Gate and Castle End among them. You need not move your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all places where we work.
The Rectory: still at the petrol pump?
Nothing beats it: that's where you are. Leave the vehicle switched off, and ring.