How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Tilsmore
If it hasn't been started, worry far less than you probably are. Till your ignition primes your pump, your starter cranks, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does no harm. Which makes the honest reply to that first Tilsmore query — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. Keep it like that: leave your engine off and phone Petrol in Diesel. The rest of this page sets out what petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it does not happen to you again.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Diesel does two jobs on its way through an engine. Before it burns, it lubricates — and then it combusts. What keeps the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors from wearing against one another is the diesel flowing through them — they're made to very fine tolerances.
Of those two jobs, petrol handles the first poorly and the second never. It's runnier than diesel and strips away the protection your fuel system rests on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is made to resist igniting under compression, which is the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the clattering comes from.
Together, those make the shape of the problem plain. Contact doesn't do the damage — movement does. Petrol in a tank is a fuel problem. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to your injectors downstream.
Tilsmore, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to serious
Filled up, and never started: no case is better. On a forecourt, and really only there, the petrol is still limited to the tank — because anywhere else the vehicle was driven to get to it. The job is draining and flushing on the spot.
A moment's running, or merely your ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the fuel lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from that tank. Normally little more than emptying, cleaning and sorting the fuel filter, so still simple.
Those few miles driven were your pump running on fuel weakened by petrol throughout. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the whole circuit: that's this work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the distance. Driving the kids to Cross-in-Hand Church of England Primary School is one kind of trip. Very different a second time: a trip to Brighton and Hove, under 25 miles away, or any miles on the M23, under 25 miles from Tilsmore, where the motor kept working hard.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. That is the motor telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Pull up on the spot — on the verge on Wealdview Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and don't move it again. Lasting damage is very rare when a car is pulled over quickly, and the fuel drain and flush that still go first deal with it.
What Tilsmore motorists get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mixture. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, however much that advice assumes.
If anything, the reverse is true. Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A current diesel runs its fuel through more precise parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so there is no harm" — the myth that catches most drivers than any other. The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel usually stops, since it will not run, and the harm stops there. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as though nothing has happened, whilst your pump wears. A running engine does not mean fine.
An old workaround for a different problem lies behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It does not put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still in the tank after that.
The next start draws petrol back round your pump out of your lines and the fuel filter, where some of it sits once the engine has been run. That's why draining the tank yourself does not sort it — a myth. Clearing petrol into a can by the roadside is also genuinely dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel happens so easily
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. A diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol motor, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error straightforward, and just in one direction.
When habit and your car stop matching, it takes place. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. Racing for a train outside Buxted and fuelling up en route. Exactly the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Renault Megane for the first time. Your hand does what it has always done once you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Next time you fill up around Tilsmore: preventing petrol in a diesel
- The label is what matters, and so check the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt.
- In a vehicle you don't know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before the first fill: plenty of motors state the fuel type there.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on your diesel's key when a home has one of each. So label it.
- Before the nozzle comes off the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Add-on devices are available for vehicles without one, and some diesels come with a filler that will not accept a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Noticing it halfway? Stop at once. A weaker mixture results from less petrol in your tank, yet the next stage remains the same: do not crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Tilsmore already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Don't switch the ignition on, and do not crank it. Ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that is Shell or anywhere else. What went in, about how much, and whether it has run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
If it was AdBlue rather than petrol, say so. That's a separate fault — corrosion and deposits rather than lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Tilsmore.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Tilsmore costs more than another
Four different jobs sit behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no honest single price. Chiefly, your cost shifts with which situation you're in. The ratio counts next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the position of the vehicle and whether getting to it is safe for our van.
Before any quote, not after, come three queries: the fuel that got in, the volume, and if it has run. That is why. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Tilsmore, for a moment
Tilsmore is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated inland at an elevation of around 160 metres, and is located approximately 19.5 miles from Brighton and Hove. Tilsmore is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature. Tilsmore sits near other local places such as Heathfield, Mutton Hall, and Beacon Down, and is about 40.5 miles from London. Tilsmore has a population of around 1923 residents.
Across East Sussex and in Tilsmore: fuel drain cover
Our teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs in Tilsmore, in the TN postcode area, also work the spots near it, Heathfield, Mutton Hall and Beacon Down among them. Our engineers drain where your car is — your own driveway, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it never needs to come to us.
In Tilsmore and still at the pump?
The best spot there is, then — that is where you are. Ring, and leave it turned off.