Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in West Tolgus
If it hasn't been started, worry far less than you probably are. Everyone in West Tolgus begins with "have I ruined it?", and the fair answer is generally no: petrol left in the tank of any diesel remains harmless until priming, cranking or driving pulls it into the fuel system. To leave the car like that, ring Petrol in Diesel then leave your engine alone. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the signs of how far it has got, and the way to make sure you never do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
On its way through an engine, diesel does two jobs. It lubricates first, and only then does it burn. Very fine gaps are built into the fuel injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only the diesel flowing through keeps those surfaces from grinding together.
Petrol handles the first job badly and the second not at all. It is runnier than diesel and strips away the protection the system hinges on, and so a pump running on a petrol mixture 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 clattering comes from.
Put these together and the shape of the trouble is clear. It is circulation that does the harm, not contact. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel issue. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors further on.
Four situations our technicians see around West Tolgus: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, not once started. The petrol is in your tank and only the tank, and the task is a drain and a flush where the vehicle stands. This is the one situation that can only truly happen at a forecourt, because anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. Petrol has come out of the tank and got to the fuel filter and the lines, since the fuel system has been primed. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still usually easy.
The pump has worked a couple of miles on weakened fuel — that's what driving the car does. The work is the tank, your lines, your filter and fresh fuel through the whole system, and how hard your car was driven matters as much as how far. A school run to Treloweth Community Primary School is one matter. Any miles on the M5, over 50 miles from West Tolgus, means the engine has worked hard throughout, and a run to Truro, under 10 miles away, makes a very different job too.
Driven on until it protested — knocking, smoke, an uneven idle, a soft throttle. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and the engine is saying so. Leave it wherever it stops: a lay-by, a quiet street, the verge on West Tolgus. The fuel drain and flush-through still go first, and they take care of it: if a vehicle is stopped quickly, lasting damage is very rare.
Stories West Tolgus motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mixture. The idea behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
"Current diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. Finer components and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the lubrication count more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no damage done." This is the one that fools people. 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 usually starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened, whilst the pump grinds. Being able to run is not proof of being fine.
An old workaround for a separate problem is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive it home." That petrol is still in that tank afterwards, and whatever it has weakened is not put back.
The next start sends petrol back round the pump from the fuel lines and the fuel filter, where some of it ends up after the engine has been run. That is why a DIY tank drain doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. Also, a can of petrol drained by the kerbside is genuinely risky.
How petrol ends up: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is rarely the cause, and no one means to do it. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slides inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one mostly will not fit a petrol car. That's how the forecourt makes it simple.
The moment habit stops matching the car is the moment it takes place. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that is new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A familiar forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill en route to Redruth. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. With rain, a call coming in, or children to deal with, the hand simply does what it always has.
West Tolgus motorists: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is usual in the UK — yet not on each forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour.
- Many vehicles state the fuel type inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check there on the first fill in any car you do not know.
- One of each in the home? Label your key to the diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since intending to remember isn't enough.
- Before the nozzle leaves the petrol pump the first time you fill a hired or new vehicle, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, perhaps, 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 built 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 reading the petrol pump.
- Less petrol makes a thinner mixture, and so stop the moment you realise — though remembering that the next step is unchanged. It's still not to crank it.
Already put petrol in a diesel around West Tolgus?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off too. Ask the attendants to help you push it clear of the petrol pump if you're still at the forecourt, whether that is Texaco or anywhere else. What was put in, about how much, and if it has run: tell us those when you call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then say so. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different problem — West Tolgus has a page just for it.
One petrol in a diesel job in West Tolgus costs more than another. Why?
A fair single price does not exist here: four situations, four separate jobs. Which of them you're in is chiefly what moves the cost. After that it is the proportion — how much petrol went in against how much that tank takes — and after that where the car is and whether our van can reach it safely.
That's why we ask three queries before costing instead of after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Those answers are what turn a range into one firm number.
About West Tolgus and where it is
West Tolgus is a suburban area in Cornwall, situated near the coast and approximately 9 miles from Truro. West Tolgus has a population of around 1480 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. West Tolgus sits at an elevation of 93 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. West Tolgus is located near notable places such as Tolgus Mount and Illogan.
Fuel drain cover around West Tolgus and across Cornwall
The vans answering petrol in diesel call-outs around West Tolgus, in the TR postcode area, also work the spots around it, Tolgus Mount, Illogan and Paynters Lane End included. You need not move the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all locations we drain.
At the pump around West Tolgus, still?
Then you're in the best position there is. Keep the vehicle turned off, then ring.