--- title: Explained: Petrol in a Diesel Car Wick canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/petrol-in-diesel/wick-west-sussex/ location: Wick county: West Sussex latitude: 50.819890 longitude: -0.543890 service: Petrol in a Diesel Car updated: 2026-10-22 --- # Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Wick Provided it hasn't been started, worry far less than you probably are. Till your ignition primes your pump, your starter turns, or your car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply sits there and does no harm. Which means the honest reply to the first Wick query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Leave the motor off then phone Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it that way. The remainder of this page sets out what petrol actually does to a diesel, how to judge how far it has got, and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you again. ## The engine and petrol in a diesel: what goes on Two jobs fall to diesel on its journey round a motor. It combusts, and before it ignites it protects. Built to extremely fine gaps, your injectors and your pump rely on the diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another. The second job petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the lubrication a fuel system needs, leaving a pump running on the blend to wear itself. It's also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you get the clattering. Put those together and the shape of the trouble is plain. Contact does not do the damage — circulation does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel issue. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors further on. ## Four situations we see around Wick: how bad is petrol in a diesel? Fuelled up, not once started. The best case there is. On a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still limited to the tank — because everywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The task is emptying and flushing on the spot. A moment's running, or just your ignition on. Once primed, your system has pulled petrol from your tank up to the fuel filter and the lines. Drain, flush, see to your filter: still usually easy. Some miles driven, and the pump has spent each of them working on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel run through the entire system: that's this work, and the way your car was driven counts as much as the mileage. Driving the kids to Lyminster Primary School is one sort of trip. A run as far as Chichester, under 15 miles away, is a very different job. So is any miles on the Waterlooville Bypass, under 25 miles from Wick, where the engine has been working hard the whole time. Driven till it complained. Clattering, an uneven idle, smoke, a throttle that has gone soft. The motor is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Wick Street, a lay-by, a side street — and leave the vehicle where it is. A vehicle pulled over soon very seldom has lasting damage, because the drain and the flush-through, which still go first, deal with it. ## Petrol in a diesel myths Wick drivers hear It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance supposes. If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through finer parts: that's how a current diesel moves its fuel, and so the lubrication matters more, not less. One myth that catches drivers off guard: if it starts and drives, it must be unharmed. A petrol engine fed diesel normally won't run, so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it normally fires up, idles and drives away like nothing has happened — all the while its pump is wearing. A running engine doesn't mean fine. "A drop of two-stroke oil and drive it home" — a myth, taken from a fix from years ago, for a distinct issue. It doesn't put back what petrol has weakened, and the petrol is still in that tank after that. If the motor has run, part of the petrol sits in the fuel filter and the fuel lines, not your tank — and your next start pulls it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain the tank yourself and you're sorted" does not hold. Clearing petrol into a can at the roadside is also really risky. ## How does petrol in a diesel occur? A careless moment is seldom 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 straightforward. Habit and your car getting out of step is how it occurs. A new vehicle, a hire car or a courtesy car. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. A forecourt you know, only with its pumps arranged differently. Filling up in a hurry en route to Littlehampton, with a train to catch. Precisely the moment it happens: after years of driving petrol, someone fills a diesel Renault Megane for the first time. 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 in Wick: avoiding petrol in a diesel - Not every forecourt in the UK keeps to green for unleaded and black for diesel, even if most usually do. Check the pump's label; the colour is just a hint. - Plenty of cars state the fuel type inside the filler flap or on the cap, so check it on your first fill in any motor you do not know. - A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember, for a house with one of each. - Say it before you lift it. On your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump. It sounds silly and it does the trick. - Mistakes like this are easy to make while your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away. - Add-on devices are available for motors without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that won't accept a petrol nozzle. Helpful — but a safety net only, never a reason to stop checking the label. - Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol inside that tank makes a thinner mix. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up. ## Put petrol in a diesel in Wick already? The order of things is brief, then. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off too. If you're still at the forecourt — Morrisons or anywhere else — ask the staff to help you push the vehicle away from the pump. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run. Corrosion and deposits are the trouble with AdBlue, whereas petrol means lost protection. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Wick page. ## Wick petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another Four different tasks lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there is no honest single price. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you're in. Two things follow that: the petrol that was put in as a proportion of what the tank holds, then the spot the vehicle is in and whether a technician can reach it safely. What got in, how much, and whether it's run — three queries we ask before quoting, not after, for exactly that reason. Those replies turn a range into a straight figure. ## About Wick Wick is a coastal village in West Sussex, situated near the mouth of the River Arun and close to the cities of Chichester and Littlehampton. Wick sits at a low elevation of around 3 metres, with its terraced housing reflecting the area's historical development. Wick is part of a larger network of settlements in the area, including nearby Toddington and Lyminster, and is within commuting distance of London, approximately 50 miles to the north-east. ## Fuel drain cover across West Sussex, Wick included Petrol in diesel calls in Wick — part of the BN postcode area — go to vans that also cover the spots around it, Toddington, Littlehampton and Lyminster included. The vehicle does not need to come to us: we drain on a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own drive. ## At the pump in Wick, right now? Then, you couldn't be in a better spot. Keep the vehicle turned off, and ring.