Petrol in a Diesel Car in Willesborough Lees: How Worried Should You Be?
Less than you likely are, if it has not been started. Till your ignition primes your pump, the starter turns, or the vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank simply rests there and does no harm. Which makes the truthful reply to the first Willesborough Lees question — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To leave the car like that, phone Petrol in Diesel then leave the motor switched off. Below, you will find what petrol really does inside a diesel, how far it may have gone, and how to stop it happening to you a second time.
The motor and petrol in a diesel: what happens
Diesel has two tasks on its way through a motor. Oiling comes before burning; it does both. Very fine tolerances go into the fuel injectors and your high-pressure pump, and only the diesel running through keeps those surfaces from grinding together.
Petrol does the first job poorly and the second not at all. A pump running on a petrol mixture is wearing itself out, because petrol is runnier than diesel and takes away the lubrication your fuel system depends on. Petrol is also made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs from its fuel — and that is where the knocking starts.
The shape of the trouble is plain when you put those together. Contact doesn't do the harm — movement does. Petrol in the tank is a fuel fault. Whatever a worn pump sheds goes on, carried by your fuel, into your injectors downstream, which is why a pump that has been working on that petrol is where a mechanical problem begins.
Four scenarios our engineers see around Willesborough Lees: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
The best case there can be: filled up, never started. Only your tank has petrol in it, and so the task is draining the tank and flushing your system where your car stands. This situation can only really take place on a forecourt: anywhere else, the vehicle got there by being driven.
The ignition switched on, or a short start. Once primed, the fuel system has drawn petrol out of your tank as far as the fuel filter and the lines. Normally nothing more than draining, flushing and sorting the filter, and so still simple.
A few miles driven, and your pump has spent each of them working on diluted fuel. How hard the vehicle was driven matters as much as how far, and this work takes in your tank, the lines, the filter and fresh fuel through the whole system. Short trips, like the school run to Willesborough Infant School, are one matter. A run as far as Canterbury, under 15 miles away, is a very different job. So is any mileage on the M20, under a mile from Willesborough Lees, where the motor has been working hard the whole time.
Rattling, a lumpy idle, smoke, a throttle gone soft: driven until it complained. The fuel is not acting like diesel any more, and the engine is saying so. Pull up wherever you are — the verge on Abbey Way, a lay-by, a side street — then leave the car where it is. A vehicle stopped soon very rarely has long-term damage, since the drain and the flush, which still go first, take care of it.
Petrol in a diesel stories Willesborough Lees people hear
Myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine." It will not. A fuller tank of the same mix is all you get, since topping up takes out nothing. Percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol, whatever that guidance presumes.
Not so: a newer diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Finer parts and higher pressure are how a modern diesel runs its fuel, and that makes the protection count more, not less.
This is the one that catches drivers. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no damage done." The motorist of a petrol engine fed diesel normally stops, since it will not run, and the damage stops with them. Feed petrol to a diesel and it generally starts, idles and pulls away as if nothing has happened — all the while its pump is wearing. Running isn't the same as fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old fix, meant for another issue. The petrol is still in your tank after that, and what it has diluted isn't put back.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump from your lines and your filter, where some of it sits once the motor has run. That's why a DIY tank drain doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. And, a can of petrol filled at the roadside is genuinely dangerous.
How does petrol in a diesel occur?
No one does it on purpose, and it is seldom carelessness. A diesel nozzle generally won't fit a petrol car, but the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel almost without resistance — so forecourts make this one mistake simple, and only in one direction.
The moment routine stops matching your car is the moment it occurs. Hire cars, courtesy cars, and cars that are new to you. A household with one petrol and one diesel on the driveway. Your usual forecourt, its pumps now in a different order. A train to catch, and a rushed fill on the way to Ashford International. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it occurs. Throw in a back seat full of children, a phone call or rain, and habit takes over.
How to prevent petrol in a diesel at your next fill-up in Willesborough Lees
- Not every forecourt in the UK follows green for unleaded and black for diesel, though most generally do. Read the petrol pump's label; the colour is just a clue.
- Check your filler flap. Plenty of motors state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in a car you don't know.
- Label the key. In a home with one of each, a coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of meaning to remember.
- It sounds daft and it works: on the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" out loud before you lift the nozzle off the petrol pump.
- Tuck your phone away. This is an easy mistake to make while you are thinking about something else.
- Up to a point, a misfuel inhibitor helps: some diesels have a filler built to reject a petrol nozzle, and aftermarket devices exist for the rest. Count it as a safety net, and keep reading the pump.
- The moment you realise, stop: less petrol inside that tank makes a thinner mix. What to do next doesn't change, though — still don't fire it up.
Willesborough Lees: already put petrol in a diesel?
The order of things is short, then. Leave it unstarted, with your ignition switched off too. If you are still at the forecourt — BP or anywhere else — ask the attendants to help you roll it away from the pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We will ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
Corrosion and deposits are the problem with AdBlue, whereas petrol brings lost lubrication. So if it was AdBlue, say so — and read its own Willesborough Lees page.
Why one petrol in a diesel job around Willesborough Lees costs more than another
There's no fair single quote for this, since the four scenarios above are four separate jobs. Mostly, your cost shifts with which situation you are in. Where the vehicle is counts too, and whether a technician can safely reach it, after the share of petrol to what the tank takes.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that got in, its amount, and whether it's run. That is why. A range becomes a straight figure once the replies are in.
About Willesborough Lees, for a moment
Willesborough Lees is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Kent, with an elevation of 43 metres. Willesborough Lees lies near the town of Ashford and the city of Canterbury, which is approximately 11.9 miles away. Willesborough Lees has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. Willesborough Lees is located close to other nearby places, including Willesborough and Hinxhill.
Willesborough Lees and Kent: where our fuel drain cover reaches
Willesborough, Hinxhill Park and Hinxhill are among the locations near Willesborough Lees that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel jobs across Willesborough Lees's TN postcode area. We drain where your vehicle is — your own drive, a lay-by, a supermarket car park, a forecourt — so it does not have to come to us.
Willesborough Lees: still at the pump?
No position is better: that's where you now are. Ring, and leave it switched off.