Did you know! Wrong fuelling is one of the most common mistake drivers make in the UK? Including the government and state-owned fleets, emergency services, and civil services fleets and the common drivers, everyone makes this mistake. In the UK only, according to the data from wrong fuel assist, fuel recovery services and AA fuel recovery, in every 3 minutes, a driver adds wrong fuel to their vehicle.
Drivers accidentally put petrol in diesel cars or they fill diesel in petrol vehicles. Based on the situation, petrol in diesel is extremely dangerous and harmful for the vehicle engine and fuel delivery system. Petrol in diesel leads to serious issues and can ultimately kill the engine and in more than 45 per cent cases.
Engine replacement required and in some cases conditions lead to some minor issues e.g. fuel delivery system problems such as fuel pump failure, fuel injectors knocking, but in rare cases it can save you everything but hassle for a while if this situation handled with due attention. Here are few instructions to follow as an emergency action if wrong fuel was added to the fuel tank accidentally.
Indeed it is a hassle and it leads to some costly fuel tank flush and other repair bills in an unlucky event of wrong fuelling. This costly mistake is not something that you has done and no one other has done. Every year there are 150 thousand drivers made this mistake and pay hefty repair bills.
It doesn’t reduce your hassle and stress if diesel has been added to petrol or vice versa, stress would remain the same, and both are dangerous. The severity level can be different anyway, petrol in diesel tank would lead to more than 5000 GBP in repair bills in some cases and diesel in petrol engines can save you 2k out of this amount if the situation is very serious.
As an emergency action, shut your vehicle engine off to complete shutdown including the cutting off the electrical system. Because in modern cars, once ignition switch turns ON, the fuel system starts working straight away. This situation can lead to problems.
Petrol in diesel is a common mistake among the drivers and they repeat it again and again because of the size of the petrol nozzles which is smaller than the diesel nozzles. Unlike the diesel nozzles, Petrol nozzles can easily fit in the neck of the diesel tank.
In case if accidentally petrol in diesel situation arises, as an emergency measure a complete shutdown of the engine is the only solution. If the engine would keep running, the fuel pump will circulate the wrong fuel mixture into the system to damage it completely.
The petrol works as a solvent and removes the lubrication out of the diesel fuel injection system within minutes. If left unattended, there is a higher probability that the engine would face some serious power loss at the first stage and then the engine would stop automatically due to wrong fuel in it, this situation would lead to an engine failure at the extreme.
Diesel nozzles are bigger than the petrol nozzles and they do not fit in the neck of the petrol fuel tank, thus it is not considered as a most common issue but some enthusiasts make this happen too and prove their level of expertise. Usually, diesel nozzles won’t fit in the petrol tanks.
But if still been added diesel in petrol, exercise the same process and turn your engine off. Diesel fuel is a dense and heavy fuel as compared to petrol thus it would contaminate the fuel delivery. Flushing the fuel delivery system, cleaning the filters and carburettor will work great.
