Petrol in a Diesel Car in Winford: How Worried Should You Be?
Far less than you probably are, if it has not been started. Petrol sitting in a diesel tank does nothing to your motor until something pulls it through the fuel system — your ignition priming the pump, your starter, or the drive itself. So the honest answer to the first question anyone in Winford asks, "have I ruined it?", is usually no. To leave the vehicle like that, phone Petrol in Diesel then leave your motor alone. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel motor, the clues of how far it has got, and the way to make sure you never do it again.
What petrol in a diesel does to the motor
Two jobs fall to diesel on its route through a motor. It lubricates first, and only then does it burn. Designed to extremely fine tolerances, the fuel injectors and the pump depend on your diesel flowing through them to keep their surfaces from wearing against one another.
Petrol does the first job poorly and the second not at all. It is runnier than diesel and strips away the lubrication the fuel system hinges on, 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 opposite of what a diesel needs from its fuel. That's where the knocking comes from.
Together, those make the shape of the issue plain. The harm is done by circulation, not by contact. Petrol in a tank is a fuel problem. The beginning of a mechanical problem is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors downstream.
Four situations our engineers see in Winford: how serious is petrol in a diesel?
Fuelled, and never started: no case is better. That petrol is inside the tank and only that tank, and the job is a drain and a flush where the vehicle sits. This is the one scenario that can only really happen on a forecourt, since anywhere else the car has been driven to get there.
A brief spell of running, or merely your ignition on. With your system primed, the fuel lines and filter already hold petrol that has come from your tank. Drain, flush, deal with your filter: still usually simple.
The pump has worked a couple of miles on diluted fuel — that's what driving it does. Tank, lines, filter, then clean fuel put through the entire circuit: that's this work, and the way your car was driven matters as much as the mileage. Short trips, like the school run to Winford Church of England Primary School, are one thing. Very different a second time: a trip to Bristol, under 10 miles away, or any distance on the M32, under 10 miles from Winford, where the engine never stopped working hard.
Driven on till it complained — knocking, smoke, a ragged idle, a soft throttle. What you are hearing is your engine reporting fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Whether it's the verge on The Old Coach Station, a lay-by or a side road, stop where you are then leave it. A vehicle pulled over quickly very seldom has permanent damage, as the drain and the flush-through, which still come first, sort it out.
Myths Winford motorists hear about petrol in a diesel
It will not be fine. The myth: "Fill it the rest of the way with diesel and it will be." Nothing is removed when you top up — the tank just carries more of the same mixture. The idea behind that advice — that diesel fuel systems accept petrol by percentage — is wrong.
If anything, the reverse holds. Myth: "A newer diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." At higher pressure, through smaller components: that is how a current diesel handles its fuel, and so the lubrication counts more, not less.
Myth: "If it starts and drives, there's no harm done." This is the one that fools motorists. Feed diesel to a petrol motor and it usually won't run, so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Nothing seems to have happened when a diesel fed petrol fires up, ticks over and drives away, which it usually does; meanwhile the pump wears. Running isn't the same as fine.
Not so: a two-stroke additive lets you to drive home. It was an old workaround, supposed for another fault. None of what petrol weakened gets put back by it — and later, your tank still contains that petrol.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump from your lines and the filter, where some of it ends up once the engine has been run. That's why a DIY tank drain does not sort it — a myth. Besides, petrol cleared into a can by the road is genuinely dangerous.
How it happens: petrol in a diesel
A careless moment is seldom the cause, and nobody means to do it. A diesel nozzle generally won't fit a petrol car, yet the slimmer petrol nozzle goes into the filler of a diesel nearly without resistance — so forecourts make this one error simple, and only in that direction.
Habit and the car getting out of step is how it occurs. A motor that's new to you — a hire car, on loan as a courtesy car, or just bought. One petrol and one diesel on the drive of the same household. Your normal forecourt, its pumps suddenly in a different order. A rushed fill on the way to Parson Street with a train to catch. Years of petrol cars behind you, a diesel Volkswagen Golf in front of you on the forecourt for its first tank — that is when. With rain, a call arriving, or children to deal with, the hand just does what it always has.
Winford motorists: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Check the petrol pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are usually green and diesel black, yet not on each forecourt. The label is what counts.
- Check the filler flap. Many vehicles 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.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on your diesel's key when a home has one of each. So label it.
- Before the nozzle leaves the pump the first time you fill a hired or new car, say "diesel" aloud. Silly, perhaps, but it works.
- While you are thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so put your phone away.
- Add-on devices are available for vehicles without one, and some diesels are built with a filler that will not take a petrol nozzle. Useful — but a backstop at best, never a reason to stop checking the label.
- Spotting it mid-fill? Stop at once. A weaker mix results from less petrol in the tank, yet the next step remains the same: do not crank it.
Put petrol in a diesel around Winford already?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on your ignition. Still at the forecourt, at the nearest petrol station or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push the car clear of the petrol pump. Next, 0333 366 0103. We'll ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it has been run.
If it was AdBlue and not petrol, say so. That's a different fault — corrosion and deposits and not lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Winford.
Winford petrol in a diesel tasks: why one costs more than another
Four different tasks lie behind the four scenarios above — which is why there's no fair single quote. The situation itself does most of the work of moving your cost. Where the vehicle is matters too, and whether our van can safely reach it, after the proportion of petrol to what your tank takes.
Before any quote, not after, we ask three questions: the fuel that was put in, its amount, and if it's run. That is why. Those replies are what turn a range into one firm number.
About Winford, for a moment
Winford is a small village in Somerset, situated approximately 5.5 miles west of Bristol and 109.5 miles west of London. Winford sits in a rural area at an elevation of around 100 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Long Cross, Upper Littleton, and Felton. Winford has a population of around 930 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
Across Somerset and in Winford: fuel drain cover
Long Cross, Upper Littleton and Felton are among the places near Winford that the same teams work, answering petrol in diesel call-outs across Winford's BS postcode area. You need not bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all spots where we work.
Still at the pump around Winford?
No position is better: that is where you are. Keep it off. Ring.