Should You Worry? Petrol in a Diesel Car in Woodnook
Far less than you probably are, provided it hasn't been started. Until the ignition primes the pump, the starter turns, or your vehicle is driven, petrol in a diesel tank just sits there and does nothing. Which makes the truthful reply to the first Woodnook query — "have I wrecked it?" — usually no. To leave the vehicle that way, ring Petrol in Diesel and leave your motor alone. 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.
Inside the engine: what petrol in a diesel really does
Diesel does two jobs on its way through a motor. Lubricating comes before burning; it does both. Made to very fine clearances, the fuel injectors and the pump depend on the diesel flowing through them to stop their surfaces wearing against one another.
The second task petrol does not do at all, and the first it does poorly. Being less viscous than diesel, petrol strips away the lubrication a fuel system needs, so a pump on the blend to wear itself. It's equally made to resist igniting under compression — the reverse of what a diesel needs — which is where you get the knocking.
Seen together, they make clear the shape the issue has. Contact doesn't do the harm — movement does. Where the petrol is only inside that tank, it's a fault of fuel, nothing more. The beginning of a mechanical one is a pump that has been running on that petrol — and whatever a worn pump sheds moves on with the fuel to your injectors beyond it.
Woodnook, petrol in a diesel: four cases, from mild to significant
Fuelled, and not started: no case is better. On a forecourt, and truly only there, that petrol is still confined to that tank — because everywhere else your car was driven to get to it. The job is draining and purging on the spot.
Started for a moment, or only the ignition on. With your system primed, your lines and filter now contain petrol that came from the tank. Usually little more than draining, purging and sorting your filter, and so still simple.
Driven a few miles. Now your pump has spent those miles labouring on thinned fuel. Tank, lines, filter, then fresh fuel put through the entire circuit: that's this work, and the way the car was driven matters as much as the miles. The school run to Accrington Woodnook Primary School is one thing. A run as far as Preston, under 15 miles away, is a very different job. So is any mileage on the M65, under 3 miles from Woodnook, where your engine has been labouring hard the whole time.
Driven on till it complained — clattering, smoke, a lumpy idle, a soft throttle. What you are hearing is the engine signalling fuel that no longer behaves like diesel. Leave it wherever it has stopped: a lay-by, a side street, the verge on Belfield Road. A vehicle pulled over quickly very rarely has long-term damage, as the fuel drain and the flush, which still come first, deal with it.
Woodnook motorists and that petrol in a diesel stories they hear
"Top it up the rest of the way with diesel and it'll be fine" — a myth. It will not. Nothing is removed by topping up — you're left with a bigger tank, still the same mix. That advice supposes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It doesn't.
Myth: a current diesel copes with a bit of petrol. If anything, the reverse. Lubrication counts more on current diesels, not less, since their fuel runs through smaller parts at higher pressure.
This is the one that catches motorists. Myth: "If it starts and drives, there is no harm done." A petrol motor fed diesel usually will not run, so the driver stops and the damage stops with them. Whilst your pump wears, a diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and drives away as if nothing has happened. Being able to run isn't the same as being fine.
Myth: "Add some two-stroke oil and drive the car home." It's an outdated workaround for a separate problem. It doesn't put back what petrol has thinned, and that petrol is still in the tank later on.
The next start sends petrol back round your pump out of the fuel lines and the filter, where some of it sits once your engine has been run. That is why a DIY tank drain doesn't leave you sorted — a myth. It is also truly dangerous to drain petrol into a can by the kerbside.
Petrol in a diesel: how does it happen?
It is rarely carelessness, and nobody does it on purpose. One way only, since of the nozzles: the smaller petrol one slips inside a diesel filler with almost no resistance, while the diesel one generally will not fit a petrol motor. That's how the forecourt makes it straightforward.
It happens when routine and the vehicle stop matching. Courtesy car, hire car, or a vehicle that's brand new. Households running one of each, petrol and diesel. A well-known forecourt with the pumps in a different order. A hurried fill en route to Accrington with a train to catch. The first fill-up in a diesel Volkswagen Golf after years of driving petrol is precisely the moment it occurs. Throw in rain, a phone call or a back seat full of children, and your hand does what it has always done.
Woodnook people: how to avoid petrol in a diesel next time
- Read 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 a car you do not know.
- A coloured fob or a sticker on your diesel's key does more than any amount of intending to remember, in a home with one of each.
- "Diesel", aloud, before you pick up the nozzle — each time a new or hired car needs its first tank. It sounds daft. It works.
- Mistakes like this are straightforward to make whilst your mind is on something else, and so the phone goes away.
- Some diesels have a filler built to refuse a petrol nozzle, and devices you can add exist for vehicles without one. Such an inhibitor helps up to a point — as a backstop, not a reason to stop reading the pump.
- Noticing it mid-fill? Stop there and then. A thinner mixture follows from less petrol inside your tank, yet the next stage stays the same: do not start the car.
Already put petrol in a diesel in Woodnook?
Short and simple, then, is the order of things. Starting it is out, and so is switching on the ignition. Ask the attendants to help you roll it clear of the petrol pump if you are still at the forecourt, whether that's Esso or somewhere else. Call 0333 366 0103 next, with three facts — the fuel, the rough quantity, and whether it's run.
If it was AdBlue instead of petrol, say so. That is a different issue — corrosion and deposits instead of lost lubrication — and it has its own page for Woodnook.
One petrol in a diesel job around Woodnook costs more than another. Why?
There is no fair single price for this, since the four scenarios above are four different tasks. What moves the cost is chiefly which of them you're in. Next it is the ratio — how much petrol went in against how much your tank takes — and after that where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely.
Three questions come first, before quoting, instead of after — what went in, how much, has it run — and this is the reason. Given the answers, you get a straight figure instead of a range.
About Woodnook, briefly
Woodnook is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing. Woodnook sits at an elevation of 158 metres, near the towns of Scaitcliffe and Accrington. Woodnook is located approximately 13.7 miles from Preston, and its residents are around 181 miles from London. Woodnook has a population of around 6658 people, living in a predominantly residential community.
Woodnook and Lancashire: where our fuel drain cover runs
Woodnook waits in the BB postcode area, and our vans that answer petrol in diesel call-outs there work the spots near it as well — Scaitcliffe, Accrington and Barnfield among them. You need not bring the car to us. Forecourts, supermarket car parks, lay-bys and your own drive are all places we drain.
At the petrol pump around Woodnook, still?
The best spot there is, then — that is where you are. Keep it off. Ring.