Widewell: Petrol in a Diesel Car? How Worried to Be
If it hasn't been started, you can worry less than you probably are. Till the ignition primes the pump, your starter turns, or the vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just waits there and does no harm. Which means the truthful reply to that first Widewell query — "have I wrecked it?" — normally no. To keep the car that way, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave your engine alone. Read on for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the signs of how far it has got, and the way to make sure you don't do it again.
What petrol in a diesel does to your engine
Two tasks fall to diesel on its route through a motor. Before it burns, it protects — then it ignites. What stops the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the injectors from wearing down against one another is the diesel flowing through them — they're designed to extremely fine tolerances.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does badly. It's thinner than diesel and strips away the lubrication the fuel system rests on, and so a pump running on a petrol blend is a pump wearing itself. And petrol is made to resist igniting under compression, which is the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That is where the rattling comes from.
The shape of the issue is plain once you put those together. Contact doesn't do the damage — movement does. Petrol in the tank is a fuel issue. The start of a mechanical one is a pump that has been working on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to your injectors beyond it.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four scenarios we see around Widewell
The best case there can be: filled up, not once started. On a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still limited to the tank — since anywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The task is draining and purging on the spot.
Your ignition switched on, or a short start. The fuel system has been bled, and so petrol has left that tank and reached your filter and your lines. That is normally still a straightforward job — a drain, a flush, and the fuel filter dealt with.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent every one of them working on diluted fuel. Miles is only half of that; how hard it was driven matters just as much. Either way this work runs to the tank, the lines, the filter and clean fuel through the whole system. Driving the children to Bickleigh Down Church of England Primary School is one kind of trip. Very different once more: a trip to Plymouth, under 10 miles away, or any distance on the M5, under 50 miles from Widewell, where your engine kept labouring hard.
Rattling, a ragged idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The engine is telling you your fuel is no longer acting like diesel. Whether it is the verge on Tavistock Road, a lay-by or a side street, stop there then leave it. Long-term damage is very unusual if a vehicle is pulled over soon, and the drain and flush that still go first deal with it.
Widewell drivers and that petrol in a diesel myths they hear
Myth: topping up to full with diesel makes it fine. It does not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a fuller tank, still the same mix. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
Myth: a modern diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. At higher pressure, through more precise parts: that is how a modern diesel moves its fuel, so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." This is the one that fools motorists. The motorist of a petrol motor fed diesel usually has no choice but to stop, since it will not run, and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, idles and drives away as though nothing has happened, while your pump wears. A running engine doesn't mean fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive makes it safe to drive home. It was an old workaround, supposed for another issue. None of what petrol weakened is put back by it — and later, your tank still holds the petrol.
"Drain it yourself and you're sorted" — a myth, because after it has been running some petrol sits in the filter and lines, ready to go right back through the pump on the next start. Clearing petrol into a can at the roadside is also genuinely hazardous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
Carelessness is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. The petrol nozzle is the smaller of the two and slides into a diesel filler with almost no resistance; a diesel nozzle mostly won't go into a petrol vehicle at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the slip runs one way.
Habit and the vehicle getting out of step is when it happens. Courtesy car, hire car, or a car that's new. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the drive. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Racing for a train outside Bere Ferrers and filling up en route. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it happens. Add rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and your hand does what it has always done.
Next time you fill up around Widewell: preventing petrol in a diesel
- Read the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, yet not on every forecourt. The label is what counts.
- In a vehicle you do not know, look inside the flap over your filler or at the cap before the first fill: many vehicles state the fuel type there.
- One of each in the home? Mark the key to the diesel — a bright fob, a sticker — since meaning to remember is not enough.
- It seems silly and it works: on your first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make while your mind is on something else, and so your phone goes away.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels come with a filler designed to refuse a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices are available for the rest. Count it as a safety net, and keep checking the petrol pump.
- Stop the moment you notice. Less petrol in the tank makes a thinner mix. It doesn't change what to do next, which is still not to start it.
Put petrol in a diesel around Widewell already?
Then the order of things is brief. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. The attendants at the forecourt — whether at Tesco itself or wherever you filled up — will usually help roll it clear of the pump if you ask. Then ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us what went in, roughly how much, and if it has run.
AdBlue, not petrol? Then tell us. Corrosion and deposits, not lost lubrication, make it a different problem — Widewell has a page just for it.
Widewell petrol in a diesel jobs: why one costs more than another
Four different tasks lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there's no honest single quote. The scenario itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Where your car is matters too, and whether a technician can safely reach it, after the ratio of petrol to what that tank holds.
Ahead of any quote, not after, come three queries: the fuel that got in, its quantity, and whether it's run. That's why. A range turns into a straight figure when those answers are in.
About Widewell
Widewell is a suburban area situated near the coast in Devon, with its elevation at around 158 metres providing views of the surrounding landscape. Widewell lies approximately 5 miles from Plymouth, and its proximity to the city has influenced its development as a residential area. Widewell is characterised by its predominance of terraced housing, which reflects the area's history of growth and expansion. Widewell is also close to other nearby places, including Belliver, Woolwell, and Bickleigh Down.
Fuel drain cover in Widewell and across Devon
The vans answering petrol in diesel calls in Widewell, in the PL postcode area, also work the spots around it, Belliver, Woolwell and Bickleigh Down included. No need to bring your car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all spots we drain.
Still at the pump around Widewell?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Ring, and leave it switched off.