How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Westbrook
If it has not been started, worry far less than you likely are. Till your ignition primes the pump, the starter cranks, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to the first Westbrook query — "have I ruined it?" — usually no. Petrol in Diesel is who to ring, with the engine left off, and so it stays that way. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has got, and ways to make sure you don't repeat it.
Inside your engine: what petrol in a diesel does
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route through a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. What keeps the surfaces inside the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors from wearing down against each other is the diesel flowing through them — they're made to very fine tolerances.
Petrol does the first task poorly and the second not at all. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, since petrol is runnier than diesel and strips out the lubrication your fuel system depends on. Petrol is also designed to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel wants from its fuel — and that's where the rattling starts.
Taken together, they show what shape the trouble has. Contact does not do the damage — circulation does. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel issue. Once your pump has been working on that petrol, a mechanical problem has begun: whatever is shed by a pump that's grinding travels onward to the injectors with the fuel.
Four scenarios our engineers see in Westbrook: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. Just that tank has petrol in it, so the task is clearing your tank and purging your system where your car stands. This situation can only truly happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, your car got there by being driven.
The ignition switched on, or a short start. With your system primed, the lines and filter already contain petrol that came from your tank. That is normally still an easy task — a drain, a flush, and your filter seen to.
A few miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them working on thinned fuel. Mileage is only half of that; how hard it was driven counts just as much. Either way the work includes that tank, the lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire circuit. Driving the children to St Philip (Westbrook) CofE Primary School is one kind of trip. Getting as far as Liverpool, under 15 miles away, makes a very different job — as does any miles on the M62, under a mile from Westbrook, with the motor labouring hard all the way.
Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. What you are hearing is your motor reporting fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Westbrook Crescent, a lay-by or a side street, stop there and leave it. Long-term damage is very rare if a car is stopped early, and the fuel drain and flush-through that still go first sort it out.
Myths Westbrook drivers 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." Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mixture. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not.
If anything, the opposite is true. Myth: "A modern diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." Smaller components and higher pressure are the way a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, and so there is no harm" — the myth that catches more motorists than any other. The driver of a petrol engine fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the damage stops there. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing happened — all while its pump wears. Fine and running are not the same at all.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It's an outdated workaround for a distinct problem. It does not put back what petrol has diluted, and that petrol is still inside your tank later.
If your engine has been run, part of that petrol is in your filter and the lines, not that tank — and the next start pulls it straight back through the pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't stand up. Clearing petrol into a can by the kerbside is also truly hazardous.
Why petrol in a diesel occurs at all
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. The petrol nozzle is the narrower of the two and slides 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 simple, and the slip runs one way.
Habit and the vehicle getting out of step is how it occurs. A motor that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A train to catch, and a hurried fill on the way to Warrington West. Exactly the moment it takes place: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Renault Megane for the first time. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and the hand takes over.
Preventing petrol in a diesel next time you fill up in Westbrook
- The label is what counts, and so check the pump instead of the colour: in the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt.
- The first fill in a new motor is the time to check the filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many motors state the fuel to use.
- Mark your key. In a household with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump. It sounds daft and it works.
- Thinking about something else is when this becomes an easy mistake to make, and so tuck your phone away and keep your mind on the pump.
- Add-on devices are available for vehicles without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that won't take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Stop the moment you realise. Less petrol in your tank makes a thinner mix. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Put petrol in a diesel in Westbrook already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Do not turn your ignition on, and do not fire it up. The staff at the forecourt — whether at Asda itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it away from the pump if you ask. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what went in, about how much, and if it's been run.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Westbrook page.
One petrol in a diesel task in Westbrook costs more than another. Why?
There is no honest single price for this, because the four situations above are four different tasks. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Two things come after that: the petrol that got in as a proportion of what the tank takes, then the place the vehicle is in and whether our van can reach it safely.
Three questions come first, before quoting, rather than after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and that is the reason. The replies change a range into a straight figure.
About Westbrook and its setting
Westbrook is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated inland at an elevation of 16 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Westbrook lies approximately 14 miles from Liverpool and is surrounded by nearby places such as Kingswood, Old Hall, and Callands. Westbrook has a population of around 4460 residents and is located in the North West region of England, about 168 miles from London. Westbrook is characterized by its quiet residential environment.
Westbrook and Cheshire: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Westbrook waits in the WA postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the spots near it as well — Kingswood, Old Hall and Callands among them. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all locations we drain, and your vehicle does not need to come to us.
In Westbrook and still at the petrol pump?
Then you're in the best place there is. Turned off it remains; then phone.