Petrol in a Diesel Car in Westwood: How Worried Should You Be?
If it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you probably are. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first question anyone in Westwood asks, and the honest answer is usually no, because petrol left in a diesel tank harms nothing until it is dragged through the system — by ignition priming, by your starter, or by being driven. To keep the car that way, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave the engine switched off. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has spread, and the way to make sure you never repeat it.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to the motor?
Passing through a motor, diesel does two things at the same time. It protects first, and only then does it burn. Extremely fine clearances are built into your injectors and the high-pressure pump, and only the diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
Badly at the first, not at all at the second: that is petrol. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump on that mixture wearing itself. It's equally made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is where you hear the rattling.
Put those together and the shape of the problem is plain. Not contact but circulation is what does the damage. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel issue. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by your fuel, into your injectors further along, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical problem starts.
Four scenarios we see in Westwood: how bad is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there is: filled up, not once started. On a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still confined to your tank — since anywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The task is emptying and flushing on the spot.
Started for a second, or just the ignition on. Petrol has come out of the tank and got to the filter and the fuel lines, since the system has been primed. Drain, flush, deal with the filter: still normally easy.
A couple of miles driven, and the pump has spent every one of them labouring on diluted fuel. The work is that tank, the fuel lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole system, and how hard your car was driven matters as much as how far. On the school run to Westwood Infant and Nursery School, the miles is short. A run as far as Nottingham, under 15 miles away, is a very different task. So is any mileage on the M1, under 3 miles from Westwood, where the motor has been labouring hard the whole time.
It protested, and only then stopped: smoke, knocking, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. The fuel isn't behaving like diesel any more, and your engine is telling you. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Palmerston Street, a lay-by, a side street — then leave it where it is. Long-term damage is very uncommon if a vehicle is stopped soon, and the drain and flush-through that still come first take care of it.
Westwood drivers and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It will not. A bigger tank of the same mix is all you get, since topping up removes nothing. The assumption behind that guidance — that diesel fuel systems tolerate petrol by percentage — is wrong.
Myth: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. A current diesel runs its fuel through finer components at higher pressure, which makes the lubrication matter more, not less.
This is the one that fools people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." A petrol motor fed diesel usually won't run, so the driver stops and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it usually starts, idles and drives away as if nothing happened — all the while its pump wears. Running does not mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It's an old workaround for a separate issue. The petrol is still in that tank after that, and whatever it has thinned is not put back.
Myth: "Drain that tank yourself and you are sorted." Once the engine has been run, some of the petrol is no longer in that tank: it's in the filter and your lines, and it goes straight back through your pump on the next start. Clearing petrol into a can at the roadside is also really dangerous.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it take place?
Nobody does it on purpose, and it's seldom carelessness. A diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol car, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake straightforward, and only in one direction.
Routine and your car falling out of step is when it occurs. A new motor, a hire car or a courtesy car. Two vehicles on one driveway, one petrol, one diesel. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps laid out differently. A rushed fill en route to Langley Mill with a train to catch. Exactly the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, a driver fills a diesel Volkswagen Golf for the first time. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit wins.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Westwood
- A green handle for unleaded and black for diesel is normal in the UK — but not on every forecourt. Trust the label on the pump, not the colour.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check the filler flap — inside it, or on the cap, many vehicles state the fuel to use.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on the diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember, for a household with one of each.
- Before the nozzle comes off the pump the first time you fill a hired or new motor, say "diesel" out loud. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put your phone away.
- Some diesels have a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for cars without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a safety net, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- Spotting it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A thinner mixture follows from less petrol in your tank, but the next step remains the same: do not crank it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Westwood? Start here
Then the order of things is short. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition off too. If you're still at the forecourt — BP or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. What got in, about how much, and whether it has run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a separate issue, with its own page for Westwood, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel job around Westwood costs more than another. Why?
An honest single quote doesn't exist here: four scenarios, four separate jobs. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Two things follow that: the petrol that went in as a share of what the tank holds, then the spot your car is in and whether a van can reach it safely.
Before any quote, not after, come three questions: your fuel that was put in, its amount, and if it has run. That is why. Those replies are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Westwood, briefly
Westwood is a village in Nottinghamshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 90 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Westwood lies approximately 10 miles from Nottingham and 118 miles from London, making it a commuter-friendly location. Westwood is surrounded by nearby places such as New Westwood, Jacksdale, and Barrows Green, and has a population of around 1654 residents. Westwood's riverside setting provides a unique character to the village.
Westwood and Nottinghamshire: where our fuel drain cover runs
Westwood waits in the NG postcode area, and our teams that answer petrol in diesel jobs there work the spots near it as well — New Westwood, Jacksdale and Barrows Green among them. You need not bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all spots we drain.
In Westwood and still at the pump?
In that case, you couldn't be in a better place. Keep the vehicle switched off, and ring.