Viewpark: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
Provided it has not been started, worry far less than you likely are. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first thing everyone in Viewpark asks, and the honest answer is normally no, since petrol left in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it is drawn through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by the starter, or by being driven. Leave your engine off then phone Petrol in Diesel — that is how you keep it that way. Further down, you will find what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it might have gone, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Your engine and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey through a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Extremely fine tolerances are built into the fuel injectors and the high-pressure fuel pump, and just the diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Petrol handles the first task badly and the second not at all. The rattling comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips away the protection the fuel system rests on, and any pump working on such a mix is wearing itself.
Combined, those make the shape of the problem clear. Contact does not do the harm — movement does. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel problem. 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 your injectors further on.
Four situations our technicians see in Viewpark: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Filled up, not once started. The best case there is. The petrol is in your tank and only your tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where your car sits. This is the one situation that can only really occur on a forecourt, since anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
A moment's running, or just the ignition on. Petrol has left that tank and got to the filter and your lines, because the system has been bled. Still usually simple: drain, flush, and the filter sorted.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent these miles running on diluted fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far, and the work takes in that tank, the lines, your filter and clean fuel through the whole system. A school run to the local primary school is one matter. A run as far as Glasgow, under 10 miles away, is a very different job. So is any distance on the M74, under a mile from Viewpark, where your engine has been working hard throughout.
Driven on until it protested — knocking, smoke, a lumpy idle, a dead throttle. The motor is telling you the fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Sycamore Avenue, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the car there. What comes first is still the fuel drain and flush-through, and that deals with it, with permanent damage very uncommon when a vehicle is pulled over quickly.
Myths Viewpark motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be." A bigger tank of the same mixture is all it gives, because topping up takes out nothing. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It does not.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. Smaller components and higher pressure are how a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that fools drivers. A petrol engine fed diesel normally won't run, and so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened — all while its pump wears. Running isn't the same as fine.
An old fix for a distinct issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." What petrol has diluted remains weakened, and the petrol stays in that tank anyway.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, waiting to go straight back through your pump at your next start. It is also truly risky to drain petrol into a can at the roadside.
Why petrol in a diesel happens at all
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. A diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol motor, yet the narrower petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake straightforward, and only in that direction.
The moment routine stops matching the vehicle is the moment it occurs. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Filling up in a hurry on the way to Uddingston, with a train to catch. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Passat in front of you at the forecourt for its first tank — that's when. With rain, a call coming in, or children to deal with, your hand just does what it has always done.
Viewpark people: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — yet not on every forecourt. Go by the label on the pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in an unfamiliar vehicle is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many vehicles state which fuel to use.
- Good intentions count for less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key when a house has one of each. So label 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 pump. It seems silly and it works.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, so your phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and add-on devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, then keep checking the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a weaker blend, and so stop the moment you realise — while remembering that the next step is unchanged. It's still not to crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel around Viewpark? Begin here
Then, there is just a short order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off too. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at BP itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it away from the petrol pump if you ask. What went in, about how much, and whether it has run: tell us that when you call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate problem — Viewpark has a page just for it.
What makes one Viewpark petrol in a diesel job cost more than the next
Four different jobs sit behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no fair single price. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you are in. Two things follow that: the petrol that got in as a proportion of what your tank holds, then the spot your car is in and whether a van can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before any quote, instead of after — what got in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. Those replies are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Viewpark, for a moment
Viewpark is a suburban area situated on the riverside in North Lanarkshire, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Viewpark sits at an elevation of 66 metres, close to the nearby communities of Fallside, Tannochside, and Birkenshaw. Viewpark is located approximately 7 miles from Glasgow, making it a commuter-friendly location. Viewpark has a population of around 6423 residents, who enjoy the area's scenic riverside setting.
Viewpark and North Lanarkshire: where our fuel drain cover runs
Viewpark rests in the G postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the spots around it as well — Fallside, Tannochside and Birkenshaw among them. Our technicians drain wherever your car is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
Still at the pump around Viewpark?
The best spot there is, then — that's where you are. Turned off it stays; then call.