Tudhoe Village: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Probably less than you already are — as long as no one has started the vehicle. Everyone in Tudhoe Village starts with "have I ruined it?", and the honest answer is generally no: petrol resting inside your tank of a diesel remains harmless till priming, cranking or driving draws it into your fuel system. To keep the vehicle like that, phone Petrol in Diesel and leave your engine switched off. What petrol really does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has travelled, and how to stop it from happening a second time: that is the remainder of this page.
What petrol in a diesel does to your engine
Diesel does two tasks on its way through a motor. It protects first, and only then does it burn. Made to very fine clearances, the fuel injectors and your pump depend on the diesel moving through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. The rattling comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the lubrication your system rests on, and any pump working on such a blend is wearing itself.
Taken together, they make clear the shape the problem has. Contact doesn't do the harm — movement does. Where that petrol is only in the tank, it's an issue of fuel, nothing more. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to your injectors further on.
Tudhoe Village, petrol in a diesel: four situations, from mild to serious
Filled up, never started. The best case there is. Being on a forecourt is what makes this the case: elsewhere, the vehicle has been driven there to begin with. With that petrol kept inside that tank alone, it is cleared and flushed right where it stands, and nothing more is needed.
The ignition switched on, or a brief start. The fuel system has been primed, and so petrol has left your tank and got to the fuel filter and the fuel lines. Normally little more than draining, rinsing and sorting the filter, so still easy.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent these miles labouring on weakened fuel. The work is your tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit, and how hard the car was driven counts as much as how far. Driving the kids to Tudhoe Colliery Primary School is one kind of trip. Any miles on the A1(M), under 5 miles from Tudhoe Village, means your engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Durham, under 5 miles away, makes a very different job as well.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, rattling, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and your engine is telling you. Whether it's the verge on Tudhoe Lane, a lay-by or a side street, stop where you are then leave it. The fuel drain and flush-through still go first, and they deal with it: when a vehicle is pulled over soon, permanent damage is very rare.
What Tudhoe Village 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. A bigger tank of the same mixture is all it gives, since topping up removes nothing. That guidance assumes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
Myth: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the opposite. A modern diesel sends its fuel through finer parts at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that catches most drivers than any other. The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, because it will not run, and the harm stops with them. Nothing looks to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually will; meanwhile your pump wears. Being able to run is not the same as being fine.
"A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct issue. What petrol has thinned stays weakened, and that petrol remains in your tank anyway.
The next start draws petrol back round your pump out of the lines and your filter, where some of it sits after your engine has run. That's why draining your tank yourself doesn't sort it — a myth. It is also truly hazardous to drain petrol into a can at the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. One way only, since of the nozzles: the slimmer petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, whereas the diesel one generally won't fit a petrol car. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
It happens when routine and your car stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that is brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. The pumps in a different order on a well-known forecourt. Filling up in a hurry en route to Durham, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Nissan Qashqai, its first fuelling, and a driver accustomed to petrol: exactly when it occurs. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, the hand simply does what it has always done.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Tudhoe Village
- Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Check the pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state which fuel they take.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key achieves more than any amount of intending to remember, in a house with one of each.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you take the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems daft and it does the trick.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so tuck the phone away and keep your mind on the petrol pump.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Noticing it halfway? Stop there and then. A thinner mix follows from less petrol inside your tank, yet the next stage stays the same: do not fire it up.
Tudhoe Village: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then, there is only a short order of things. Do not turn your ignition on, and do not crank it. Ask the staff to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that is Asda or anywhere else. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what went in, about how much, and if it has been run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a different problem, with its own page for Tudhoe Village, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel task around Tudhoe Village costs more than another. Why?
Four separate jobs lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no fair single price. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving the cost. Where the vehicle is matters too, and whether a technician can safely get to it, after the ratio of petrol to what the tank holds.
What got in, how much, and whether it has run — three queries our engineers ask before quoting, not after, for exactly that reason. With those answers, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Tudhoe Village, briefly
Tudhoe Village is a suburban area located on the riverside in County Durham, with an elevation of 98 metres and situated approximately 4.5 miles from the city of Durham. Tudhoe Village has a population of around 1390 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Tudhoe Village is part of a larger network of nearby places, including Tudhoe, Tudhoe Grange, and Croxdale, in the North East region of England.
Across Durham and around Tudhoe Village: fuel drain cover
Tudhoe Village sits in the DL postcode area, and the teams that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots near it as well — Tudhoe, Tudhoe Grange and Croxdale among them. The car does not need to move to us: our engineers drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive.
At the pump around Tudhoe Village, right now?
The best place there is, then — that's where you are. Leave the car switched off, then ring.