Petrol in a Diesel Car in Townsend: How Worried Should You Be?
Probably less than you already are — provided no one has started the car. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to the engine until something draws it through the system — the ignition priming the pump, your starter, or driving itself. So the truthful answer to the first question everyone in Townsend asks, "have I ruined it?", is usually no. Leave the engine off then call Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. Further down, this page sets out what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it might have got, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It protects first, and after that does it burn. Designed to very fine tolerances, the injectors and your pump rely on the diesel moving through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
Petrol handles the first job badly and the second not at all. The knocking comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection your system hinges on, and any pump running on that mixture is wearing itself.
Taken together, they make clear the shape the problem takes. It's movement that causes the harm, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. Once the pump has been running on that petrol, a mechanical problem has begun: whatever is shed by a pump that's grinding is carried onward to the injectors with the fuel.
Four situations our engineers see in Townsend: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled but not once started — the best it gets. Only your tank has petrol in it, and so the task is draining your tank and cleaning the fuel system where the vehicle sits. This scenario can only truly occur on a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Your ignition turned on, or a brief start. Petrol has come out of your tank and reached your filter and your lines, since the system has been bled. That's usually still a simple task — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent these miles working on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the entire system: that's the work, and the way the car was driven counts as much as the mileage. A school run to Jewell Academy Bournemouth is one thing. Any miles on the M27, under 25 miles from Townsend, means the engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Southampton, under 25 miles away, makes a very different job as well.
Driven until it complained. Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The engine is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Stop where you are — on the verge on Ibbertson Way, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it. Permanent damage is very uncommon when a car is stopped quickly, and the drain and flush-through that still go first sort it out.
Petrol in a diesel stories Townsend people hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine." It will not. A bigger tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up removes nothing. A diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage in the way that guidance presumes.
Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." If anything, the opposite. Finer parts and higher pressure are how a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
One myth that catches motorists out: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it normally won't run, so the motorist stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst the pump wears. Being able to run isn't the same as being fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It was an old workaround, supposed for another issue. What petrol has diluted stays thinned, and that petrol remains in the tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it's been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, waiting to go right back through your pump on the next start. And, a can of petrol filled at the roadside is truly dangerous.
Why petrol in a diesel happens at all
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and nobody means to do it. The forecourt makes it simple: the petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two, and it slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whilst a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol vehicle at all. So the mistake runs one way.
Routine and your car falling out of step is how it occurs. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. A rushed fill en route to Pokesdown with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Clio for the first time. The hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Avoiding petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Townsend
- Read the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what matters.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar car is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state the fuel they take.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a vivid colour on the diesel's key when a home has one of each. So mark it.
- Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. It sounds silly and it works.
- Whilst you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put your phone away.
- Some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol inside that tank makes a weaker mixture. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel around Townsend?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Do not crank it, and don't turn the ignition on. Ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that is Esso or anywhere else. Ring 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — the fuel, the rough volume, and if it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it is a separate fault, with its own page for Townsend, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel job in Townsend costs more than another. Why?
There's no fair single price for this, since the four scenarios above are four different tasks. Mostly, the cost shifts with which one you are in. The share counts next, meaning how much of your tank is petrol, followed by the location of the vehicle and whether getting to it is safe for a technician.
Three questions come first, before quoting, rather than after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. A range becomes a straight figure once the answers are in.
About Townsend
Townsend is a coastal suburban area in Dorset, situated near the cities of Southampton and Bournemouth. Townsend has a relatively low elevation of around 10 metres above sea level and is close to nearby places such as Haddon Hill and Holdenhurst. Townsend is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, which reflects its development as a residential area. Townsend is home to a population of approximately 4281 residents.
Townsend and Dorset: where our fuel drain cover runs
Our teams answering petrol in diesel call-outs around Townsend, in the BH postcode area, equally work the locations near it, Haddon Hill, Holdenhurst and Strouden included. You need not bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations where we work.
At the pump around Townsend, right now?
Then you're in the best position there can be. Keep it off. Phone.