Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Titchfield
Unstarted? Then less worried than you likely feel. Everyone around Titchfield starts with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is normally no: petrol resting in that tank of a diesel stays harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into the fuel system. To leave it that way, call Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to gauge how far it's travelled, and how to stop it from happening again: that's the rest of this page.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the engine?
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route through a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from wearing down against each other is the diesel passing through them — they are built to very fine clearances.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. The rattling comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips away the lubrication the system rests on, and any pump running on such a mix is wearing itself.
The shape of the problem is plain when you put those together. It's movement that does the harm, not contact. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, carried by the fuel, into your injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical fault begins.
Four situations our engineers see around Titchfield: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, not once started. On a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still limited to that tank — since anywhere else the car was driven to get to it. The job is draining and rinsing on the spot.
A moment's running, or merely your ignition on. Petrol has come out of the tank and reached the fuel filter and the lines, since the system has been bled. Drain, flush, deal with the fuel filter: still normally simple.
Driven a couple of miles. Now the pump has spent these miles labouring on diluted fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the whole circuit: that's the work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the mileage. Short trips, such as the school run to Titchfield Primary School, are one matter. Driving as far as Portsmouth, under 10 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any miles on the M27, under 3 miles from Titchfield, with your engine running hard all the way.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and your engine is saying so. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on High Street. What goes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that takes care of it, with long-term damage very rare if a vehicle is pulled over early.
What Titchfield people get told about petrol in a diesel — and the myths in it
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. That guidance presumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." More precise components and higher pressure are the way a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
The myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it generally won't run, and so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, as it usually does; meanwhile your pump grinds. Being able to run isn't proof of being fine.
An old fix for a distinct fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." The petrol is still in the tank after that, and whatever it has weakened isn't put back.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump out of your lines and the filter, where some of that ends up once the motor has been run. That is why a DIY tank drain doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. It is also really risky to drain petrol into a can by the roadside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle at all. So the mistake runs one way.
It occurs when habit and the car stop matching. A motor that's new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps laid out differently. A hurried fill en route to Fareham with a train to catch. Exactly the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Megane for the first time. Throw in a back seat full of kids, a phone call or rain, and habit wins.
Next time you fill up in Titchfield: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Read the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- In a vehicle you don't know, look inside the flap over the filler or at the cap before your first fill: plenty of cars state the fuel type there.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key achieves more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a house with one of each.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Whilst you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put the phone away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop reading the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a thinner mixture, so stop the moment you notice — while remembering that the next stage is unchanged. It's still not to start it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Titchfield already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Do not crank it, and don't switch your ignition on. If you're still on the forecourt — Shell or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's been run.
If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That is a different problem — corrosion and deposits and not lost protection — and it has its own page for Titchfield.
One petrol in a diesel job in Titchfield costs more than another. Why?
A fair single quote does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. Which of them you are in is mostly what shifts your cost. The share counts next, meaning how much of the tank is petrol, and then the position of your car and whether getting to it is safe for a van.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three queries: the fuel that was put in, the amount, and whether it has run. That is why. Their answers are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Titchfield, for a moment
Titchfield is a small village on the south coast of Hampshire, situated near the larger city of Portsmouth. Titchfield sits at a low elevation of around 8 metres above sea level, close to the Solent Strait. Titchfield has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Titchfield is also near several other small communities, including Catisfield and Heathfield.
Fuel drain cover across Hampshire, Titchfield included
Catisfield, Heathfield and Titchfield Park are among the places around Titchfield that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Titchfield's PO postcode area. The vehicle doesn't need to come to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
At the pump in Titchfield, still?
The best position there is, then — that's where you are. Ring, and keep it turned off.