Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Tovil
If it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Everyone in Tovil begins with "have I wrecked it?", and the honest answer is usually no: petrol left inside your tank of a diesel stays harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the system. Leave the motor off and call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. What petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it's gone, and how to keep it from happening a second time: that is the remainder of this page.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route through a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Very fine clearances are built into the injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and only the diesel running through keeps their surfaces from grinding together.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does badly. It is thinner than diesel and strips away the protection your fuel system depends on, 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 opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the rattling comes from.
The shape of the problem is clear once you put those together. It is movement that does the damage, not contact. Where the petrol is only inside that tank, it's an issue of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been working on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
Four scenarios our technicians see around Tovil: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, not once started. Only that tank has petrol in it, so the job is draining that tank and purging the system where the vehicle sits. This scenario can only really take place on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
Started for a moment, or just your ignition on. The system has been primed, and so petrol has left the tank and got to the fuel filter and your lines. Usually nothing more than draining, cleaning and sorting your filter, and so still straightforward.
Some miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them working on diluted fuel. The work is your tank, the fuel lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the whole system, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. The school run to Archbishop Courtenay Primary School is one thing. A run as far as Southend-on-Sea, under 25 miles away, is a very different job. So is any miles on the M20, under 3 miles from Tovil, where the engine has been running hard throughout.
Driven until it complained. Rattling, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and your motor is saying so. Whether it's the verge on Church Street, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. What goes first is still the drain and flush-through, and that deals with it, with lasting damage very uncommon if a vehicle is pulled over soon.
Stories Tovil motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. Nothing comes out when you top up — that tank just holds more of the same blend. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes.
Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. A current diesel sends its fuel through smaller components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so no harm done" — the myth that trips up most motorists than any other. Diesel in a petrol motor generally means a motor that won't run: the driver stops, and so does the harm. While your pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened. Fine and running are not the same thing.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old workaround, meant for another fault. None of what petrol thinned gets put back by it — and afterwards, the tank still holds the petrol.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump from the fuel lines and the fuel filter, where some of that ends up after the engine has run. That's why draining your tank yourself doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. And, a can of petrol drained by the roadside is genuinely dangerous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
It is rarely carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. One way only, since of the nozzles: the slimmer petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly won't fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it easy.
When routine and the vehicle stop matching, it occurs. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Maidstone West. Exactly the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and the hand does what it has always done.
Tovil motorists: how to prevent petrol in a diesel next time
- Green for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour.
- Check the filler flap. Many motors state the fuel inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any motor you do not know.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key when a home has one of each. So label it.
- It seems silly and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the pump.
- Tuck the phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- A misfuel inhibitor helps, up to a point. Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for cars without one. They are a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Less petrol makes a weaker blend, so stop the moment you notice — though remembering that your next stage is unchanged. It's still not to crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel in Tovil already?
In that case, there's just a short order of things. Starting it is out, and so is turning on your ignition. Ask the staff to help you push it clear of the pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that's Esso or somewhere else. What was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate issue — Tovil has a page just for it.
Why one petrol in a diesel task in Tovil costs more than another
The four situations above are four separate jobs, so no single quote for this would be fair. Chiefly, your cost shifts with which situation you are in. Two things come after that: the petrol that got in as a share of what that tank holds, then the spot the car is in and whether a technician can get to it safely.
What got in, how much, and if it's run — three queries our technicians ask before costing, not after, for precisely that reason. A range becomes a straight figure when those replies are in.
About Tovil, briefly
Tovil is a suburban area in Kent, situated on the banks of the River Medway at an elevation of around 13 metres. Tovil lies on the outskirts of Maidstone, near the neighbourhoods of Lower Fant, Upper Fant, and Fant. Tovil has a mix of housing types, with terraced houses being particularly prevalent in the area. Tovil is located approximately 32 miles from London and 21 miles from the coast at Southend-on-Sea.
Across Kent and in Tovil: fuel drain cover
Petrol in diesel call-outs in Tovil — part of the ME postcode area — go to teams that likewise cover the locations round it, Lower Fant, Upper Fant and Fant among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own driveway are all spots our engineers work, and your vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
Tovil: still at the petrol pump?
Then you are in the best place there is. Ring, and leave it turned off.