How Worried Should You Be? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Wideopen
Less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Till your ignition primes your pump, your starter turns, or the car is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does nothing. Which makes the honest reply to the first Wideopen question — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. Keep it that way: leave the motor off and call Petrol in Diesel. Below, you will find what petrol actually does inside a diesel, how far it may have got, and how to stop it happening to you again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Two tasks fall to diesel on its journey through a motor. It combusts, and before it ignites it protects. Very fine gaps go into your injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only your diesel running through stops their surfaces grinding together.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does badly. The clattering comes from petrol being designed not to ignite when compressed, which is exactly the reverse of what a diesel needs. On top of that it is runnier than diesel, it strips away the lubrication the system depends on, and any pump running on that mixture is wearing itself.
Taken together, they show the shape the trouble takes. The harm is done by circulation, not by contact. Any tank with petrol in it is a fuel fault. A pump that has been labouring on that petrol is the start of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with the fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our engineers see around Wideopen
Filled but not once started — the best it gets. Just your tank has petrol in it, and so the task is emptying the tank and flushing the fuel system where the vehicle stands. This scenario can only really occur at a forecourt: anywhere else, your car got there by being driven.
A brief spell of running, or just your ignition on. Your system has been primed, and so petrol has left your tank and got to the fuel filter and the lines. Still usually simple: drain, flush, and the filter sorted.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them labouring on thinned fuel. The work is the tank, the fuel lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the entire system, and how hard the vehicle was driven counts as much as how far. On the school run to Greenfields Community Primary School, the mileage is small. Getting as far as Newcastle upon Tyne, under 5 miles away, makes a very different task — as does any miles on the A167(M), under 5 miles from Wideopen, with the motor working hard the whole time.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, rattling, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone lumpy. The fuel isn't acting like diesel any more, and the engine is telling you. Pull up where you are — on the verge on Great North Road, at the kerb, down a side road — and do not move it again. What comes first is still the drain and flush, and that sorts it out, with permanent damage very unusual if a vehicle is stopped quickly.
Wideopen people and the petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mix. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that guidance supposes.
Not so: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. Rather, the reverse. Protection counts more on current diesels, not less, because their fuel runs through finer parts at higher pressure.
"It starts, it drives, so there is no harm" — the myth that catches more people than any other. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it usually will not run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Whilst your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol usually starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened. Fine and running are not the same at all.
An old fix for a distinct fault is behind this one. Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." That petrol is still inside your tank afterwards, and what it has diluted isn't put back.
Once the engine has been run, part of that petrol is in your filter and the lines, not the tank — and your next start pulls it straight back through your pump. So the myth "drain that tank yourself and you're sorted" doesn't stand up. Draining petrol into a can at the kerbside is also truly risky.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it occur?
On purpose? Never. Through carelessness? Seldom, if ever. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slips into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol car at all. The forecourt makes it easy, and the error runs one way.
When routine and the car stop matching, it occurs. A car that is new to you — hired, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. A forecourt you know, but with its pumps arranged differently. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Cramlington. The first fill-up in a diesel Renault Megane after years of driving petrol is exactly the moment it happens. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of kids, and your hand does what it has always done.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Wideopen
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most usually do. Read the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a hint.
- Many motors state the fuel inside your filler flap or on the cap, and so check there on your first fill in any motor you do not know.
- One of each in the home? Mark your key to your diesel — a coloured fob, a sticker — since meaning to remember isn't enough.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump. It seems silly and it does the trick.
- 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 petrol pump.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the remainder. Treat it as a safety net, and keep checking the pump.
- Spotting it halfway? Stop at once. A thinner blend results from less petrol in your tank, yet the next step stays the same: don't start the vehicle.
Wideopen: already put petrol in a diesel?
Then the order of things is brief. Do not crank it, and don't turn your ignition on. Still on the forecourt, at Wideopen Service Station or anywhere else? Ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the pump. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three answers — your fuel, the approximate quantity, and whether it has run.
Say so if it was AdBlue rather than petrol: it is a different issue, with its own page for Wideopen, because AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits instead of lost protection.
Wideopen petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
There is no honest single quote for this, because the four scenarios above are four separate jobs. What shifts the cost is mostly which of them you are in. Where your car is matters too, and whether our van can safely reach it, after the share of petrol to what your tank holds.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that went in, the quantity, and if it's run. That's why. Those answers are what change a range into one firm number.
About Wideopen itself
Wideopen is a village in Tyne and Wear, situated near the river in the North East of England, with an elevation of around 72 metres. Wideopen lies close to Newcastle upon Tyne, approximately 4.9 miles from the city centre, and is near other local places such as Brunswick Village and Hazlerigg. Wideopen has a population of around 2768 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
Across Tyne and Wear and around Wideopen: fuel drain cover
Brunswick Village, Hazlerigg and Seaton Burn are among the places around Wideopen that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel calls across Wideopen's NE postcode area. The car does not need to come to us: our engineers drain at a forecourt, in a supermarket car park, in a lay-by or on your own driveway.
Still at the pump around Wideopen?
Nothing beats it: that is where you are. Ring, and keep it turned off.