Petrol in a Diesel Car in West Hoathly: How Worried Should You Be?
Far less than you probably are, if it hasn't been started. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first thing everyone in West Hoathly asks, and the truthful answer is usually no, because petrol left in a diesel tank hurts nothing till it's dragged through your fuel system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by driving. Leave the motor off and ring Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. Further down, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you again.
What petrol in a diesel does to the engine
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route through a motor. It burns, and before it ignites it protects. The high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors are designed to very fine gaps, and the diesel passing through them is what stops those surfaces from grinding against one another.
Of these two jobs, petrol handles the first badly and the second not at all. The knocking comes from petrol being made not to ignite when compressed, which is precisely the opposite of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is thinner than diesel, it strips out the protection your system depends on, and any pump working on such a mix is wearing itself.
Put these together and the shape of the problem is plain. It's circulation that causes the damage, not contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, carried by the fuel, into the fuel injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical issue begins.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios our technicians see around West Hoathly
Filled up, not once started. The best case there is. Only that tank has petrol in it, and so the job is emptying the tank and rinsing your system where your car stands. This scenario can only truly take place at a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
A brief spell of running, or merely the ignition on. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter now hold petrol that has come from the tank. That's usually still a straightforward job — a drain, a flush, and the filter seen to.
Those few miles on the road were the pump labouring on fuel weakened by petrol throughout. Mileage is only half of it; how hard it was driven matters equally. Either way this work includes the tank, the fuel lines, your filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Driving the kids to West Hoathly CofE Primary School is one kind of trip. Getting as far as Brighton and Hove, under 25 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any mileage on the M23, under 5 miles from West Hoathly, with the motor labouring hard the whole time.
Driven until it complained. Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. That is the engine telling you its fuel no longer is behaving like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Church Hill, a lay-by or a side road, stop there then leave it. A vehicle pulled over soon very rarely has lasting damage, since the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, sort it out.
West Hoathly drivers and that petrol in a diesel stories they hear
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Topping up takes out nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mixture. A diesel fuel system does not tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice assumes.
If anything, the reverse is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." More precise parts and higher pressure are the way a newer diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so there is no harm" — the myth that catches most motorists than any other. A petrol motor fed diesel usually won't run, and so the driver 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 the pump grinds. Running isn't the same as fine.
An old fix for a different issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It does not put back what petrol has diluted, and that petrol is still in that tank later on.
Myth: "Drain your tank yourself and you are sorted." After your engine has been run, some of that petrol is no longer inside the tank: it is in the filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through the pump at the next start. On top of that, petrol emptied into a can by the road is truly hazardous.
How does petrol in a diesel happen?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle generally will not go into a petrol motor at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the slip runs one way.
It happens when routine and the car stop matching. A new car, 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. A hurried fill en route to East Grinstead with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Golf, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it happens. Your hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
Next time you fill up around West Hoathly: avoiding petrol in a diesel
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- The first fill in a new motor is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, plenty of vehicles state which fuel they take.
- Label your key. In a house with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, yes, but it works.
- Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add are available for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A weaker mix results from less petrol in that tank, yet your next stage remains the same: do not fire it up.
Already put petrol in a diesel around West Hoathly?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Don't turn the ignition on, and don't fire it up. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Esso itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help push it clear of the pump if you ask. Then phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, roughly how much, and whether it's run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a separate fault — West Hoathly has a page just for it.
One petrol in a diesel task around West Hoathly costs more than another. Why?
There's no fair single quote for this, because the four scenarios above are four different tasks. Chiefly, the cost shifts with which one you are in. Two things follow that: the petrol that got in as a proportion of what the tank takes, then the place your car is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
What was put in, how much, and if it has run — three questions our technicians ask before costing, not after, for exactly that reason. Those replies change a range into a straight figure.
About West Hoathly, for a moment
West Hoathly is a small village in West Sussex, situated near the River Medway and surrounded by woodland and farmland. West Hoathly sits at an elevation of 179 metres, with views of the surrounding countryside and the South Downs in the distance. West Hoathly is located near several other villages, including Sharpthorne and Selsfield Common, and is within commuting distance of Brighton and Hove. West Hoathly has a population of around 730 people, living in predominantly detached houses.
Fuel drain cover across West Sussex, West Hoathly included
West Hoathly waits in the RH postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the locations around it as well — Sharpthorne, Selsfield Common and Highbrook among them. No need to bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places where we work.
In West Hoathly and still at the pump?
The best spot there is, then — that is where you are. Turned off it stays; then phone.