Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Wick
If it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you probably are. "Have I ruined it?" is the first thing everyone in Wick asks, and the honest answer is usually no, since petrol left in a diesel tank harms nothing till it is dragged through the fuel system — by ignition priming, by the starter, or by driving. Leave your motor off and call Petrol in Diesel — that keeps it like that. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the signs of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you never do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
On its way through an engine, diesel has two jobs. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. What stops the surfaces inside the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from wearing against each other is the diesel flowing through them — they are made to extremely fine clearances.
Petrol does the first task poorly and the second not at all. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips out the protection a fuel system needs, leaving a pump running on that mixture wearing itself. It is also made to resist igniting under compression — the opposite of what a diesel needs — which is why you hear the rattling.
The shape of the problem is clear once you put those together. Not contact but circulation is what causes the damage. A tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds travels on, borne by the fuel, into the injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has worked on the petrol is where a mechanical fault begins.
How serious is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios we see in Wick
Filled but never started — as good as it gets. That petrol is in that tank and just the tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one scenario that can only really take place at a forecourt, as anywhere else your car has been driven to get there.
Your ignition turned on, or a short start. With the fuel system primed, the lines and filter already hold petrol that has come from the tank. Drain, flush, see to your filter: still usually simple.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent those miles working on thinned fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far, and this work takes in the tank, the lines, the fuel filter and clean fuel through the entire system. Short trips, such as the school run to Downton CofE VA Primary School, are one thing. A run as far as Salisbury, under 10 miles away, is a very different task. So is any distance on the M27, under 10 miles from Wick, where your engine has been running hard throughout.
Driven on until it complained — knocking, smoke, a ragged idle, a soft throttle. That's your motor telling you its fuel has stopped acting like diesel. Leave it where it stops: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Mesh Pond. The drain and flush-through still come first, and they deal with it: if a vehicle is pulled over soon, permanent damage is very uncommon.
Wick people 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. Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a bigger tank of the same mix. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that guidance assumes.
"Newer diesels can handle a little petrol" — a myth, and nearer the reverse. More precise parts and higher pressure are how a current diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
"It starts, it drives, so no harm done" — the myth that catches most motorists than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it usually won't run, so the driver stops — and the harm stops with them. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, while your pump grinds. Running isn't the same as fine.
An old fix for a separate issue is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and the petrol is still in that tank afterwards.
Myth: "Drain the tank yourself and you are sorted." Once the motor has been run, some of the petrol is no longer in the tank: it is in the filter and your lines, and it goes right back through your pump at the next start. It is also truly dangerous to drain petrol into a can at the roadside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it happen?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Rarely, if ever. A diesel nozzle mostly will not go into a petrol vehicle, but the smaller petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and only in one direction.
It happens when routine and your car stop matching. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and vehicles that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. Your ordinary forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A hurried fill on the way to Salisbury with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Clio after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it happens. Your hand repeats what it has always done when you add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids.
How to avoid petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Wick
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are generally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- The first fill in a strange vehicle is the time to check your filler flap — on it, or on the cap, many cars state which 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.
- "Diesel", out loud, before you lift the nozzle — every time a new or hired car gets its first tank. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- Mistakes like this are simple to make whilst your mind is on something else, so your phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler built to block a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- Stop as soon as you realise. Less petrol inside that tank means a weaker mixture. It does not change what to do next, which is still not to fire it up.
Wick: already put petrol in a diesel?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. Ask the staff to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you are still on the forecourt, whether that is Esso or somewhere else. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the rough volume, and if it's run.
Corrosion and deposits form the trouble with AdBlue, where petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and see its own Wick page.
One petrol in a diesel task around Wick costs more than another. Why?
A fair single price does not exist here: four scenarios, four separate tasks. Which of them you're in is mostly what moves the cost. Next it's the ratio — how much petrol got in against how much the tank holds — and then where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before any quote, rather than after — what was put in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Their answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Wick and its setting
Wick is a suburban area in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of 44 metres, approximately 5.5 miles from Salisbury. Wick lies within the wider Salisbury urban area, near neighbouring communities such as Downton and Charlton All Saints. Wick has a population of around 1198 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Wick is also relatively close to other local areas, including North Street.
Fuel drain cover around Wick and across Wiltshire
Downton, Charlton All Saints and North Street are among the spots near Wick that the same vans work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Wick's SP postcode area. A forecourt, a supermarket car park, a lay-by or your own drive are all locations our technicians work, and your car does not need to move to us.
At the pump in Wick, still?
Then, you could not be in a better position. Leave the car switched off, and ring.