Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Woodend
If it hasn't been started, worry less than you likely are. "Have I wrecked it?" is the first thing anyone around Woodend asks, and the truthful answer is usually no, because petrol left in a diesel tank harms nothing till it's drawn through your fuel system — by ignition priming, by the starter, or by being driven. Keep it that way: leave your motor off then call Petrol in Diesel. Keep reading for three things: the effect petrol has inside a diesel engine, the clues of how far it has spread, and ways to make sure you don't do it again.
Petrol in a diesel: what does it do to your engine?
Diesel does two jobs on its way through an engine. It lubricates to begin with, and after that does it burn. What keeps the surfaces inside your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors from wearing down against one another is the diesel flowing through them — they're made to extremely fine tolerances.
The second job petrol doesn't do at all, and the first it does poorly. The clattering comes from petrol being made 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 protection the system rests on, and any pump working on that mix is wearing itself.
The shape of the trouble is plain when you put those together. Contact doesn't do the harm — circulation does. All a tank with petrol in it amounts to is a fuel fault. A pump that has been running on that petrol is the beginning of a mechanical one, and whatever a worn pump sheds travels on with your fuel to the injectors further on.
How bad is petrol in a diesel? Four situations our engineers see in Woodend
Fuelled but never started — the best it gets. Only your tank has petrol in it, so the job is draining the tank and flushing the fuel system where the car stands. This situation can only really happen on a forecourt: anywhere else, the car got there by being driven.
Ignition on, or started for a moment. Petrol has left your tank and reached your filter and the fuel lines, since your system has been bled. That is usually still a simple task — a drain, a flush, and the filter dealt with.
Driven a few miles. Now the pump has spent these miles running on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel run through the whole circuit: that is this work, and the way the car was driven counts as much as the miles. Driving the kids to Great Preston VC CofE Primary School is one sort of trip. A run as far as Wakefield, under 10 miles away, is a very different job. So is any mileage on the M1, under 3 miles from Woodend, where your engine has been working hard the whole time.
It complained, and only then stopped: smoke, clattering, a throttle gone soft, an idle gone uneven. That's your motor telling you its fuel no longer is behaving like diesel. Stop wherever you are — the verge on Leeds Road, a lay-by, a side street — and leave it there. The fuel drain and flush still come first, and they take care of it: if a car is pulled over quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
What Woodend people get told about petrol in a diesel — and the stories in it
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it will be fine" — a myth. It won't. Topping up removes nothing; it gives you a fuller tank of the same mixture. Percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol, whatever that guidance supposes.
If anything, the reverse is true. Myth: "A current diesel can cope with a bit of petrol." A current diesel sends its fuel through smaller components at higher pressure, which makes the protection matter more, not less.
This is the one that catches people. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." Feed diesel to a petrol engine and it usually will not run, and so the motorist stops — and the damage stops with them. Whilst your pump grinds, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away as if nothing has happened. Running does not mean fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the vehicle home." It's an old fix for a different problem. What petrol has weakened stays thinned, and the petrol remains inside your tank anyway.
The next start sends petrol back round the pump out of your lines and the filter, where some of it ends up once your engine has run. That is why a DIY tank drain does not leave you sorted — a myth. It's also truly risky to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it happen?
No one does it on purpose, and it is seldom carelessness. 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 motor at all. The forecourt makes it simple, and the mistake runs one way.
It happens when habit and your car stop matching. A new car, a hire car or a courtesy car. One petrol and one diesel on the driveway of the same household. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. Filling up in a hurry en route to Castleford, with a train to catch. A new-to-you diesel Volkswagen Passat, its first fuelling, and a motorist accustomed to petrol: exactly when it happens. The hand does what it has always done once 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 Woodend
- Check the pump, not the colour. In the UK unleaded handles are normally green and diesel black, but not on each forecourt. The label is what matters.
- Inspect your filler flap. Plenty of cars state the fuel type inside the flap or on the cap. Look at it on your first fill in any motor you don't know.
- Good intentions do less than a sticker or a fob in a bright colour on the diesel's key when a household has one of each. So label it.
- Say it before you lift it. On the first fill in a new or hired car, say "diesel" aloud before you lift the nozzle off the pump. It seems silly and it does the trick.
- While you're thinking about something else, this is an easy mistake to make — so tuck the phone away.
- Some diesels have a filler designed to reject a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for motors without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop checking the petrol pump.
- As soon as you notice, stop: less petrol inside your tank makes a thinner mixture. What to do next does not change, though — still do not start it.
Petrol already in a diesel in Woodend? Start here
Then, there is just a short order of things. Do not fire it up, and don't turn the ignition on. Still on the forecourt, at Oakdale Garage or anywhere else? Ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the pump. What was put in, roughly how much, and whether it has run: tell us those when you phone 0333 366 0103.
Say so if it was AdBlue instead of petrol: it's a separate fault, with its own page for Woodend, since AdBlue brings corrosion and deposits rather than lost protection.
One petrol in a diesel task around Woodend costs more than another. Why?
The four scenarios above are four different jobs, so no single price for this would be honest. Which of them you are in is mostly what shifts the cost. Where your car is matters too, and whether a van can safely get to it, after the proportion of petrol to what the tank takes.
Ahead of any quote, not after, we ask three queries: the fuel that went in, the volume, and whether it has run. That's why. Those answers change a range into a straight figure.
About Woodend itself
Woodend is a village in West Yorkshire, situated on the lakeside at an elevation of 32 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Woodend lies approximately 6.7 miles from Wakefield and is surrounded by nearby places such as Great Preston, Lower Mickletown, and Allerton Bywater. Woodend has a population of around 2110 residents and is located about 163.8 miles north of London.
Fuel drain cover in Woodend and across West Yorkshire
Woodend sits in the WF postcode area, and the vans that answer petrol in diesel calls there work the spots near it as well — Great Preston, Lower Mickletown and Allerton Bywater among them. No need to move the vehicle to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own driveway are all places where we work.
Still at the pump around Woodend?
Then, you could not be in a better spot. Keep it off. Ring.