Almost every driver is familiar with the sinking feeling of putting the wrong fuel in their vehicle. According to statistics every 3 minutes, a driver in UK commits the mistake of wrong fuelling in his vehicle weather its petrol in diesel car or diesel in petrol car. This mistake can prove to be harmless or disastrous depending on your response towards the mistake. First thing first, lets start with the absolute essentials. Here is a lowdown of what you should do that is absolutely important to save your self from turning this mistake into a disaster.
What ever you do, do not start your vehicle, infect do not even turn the ignition. Turning your ignition would mean that you would help contaminated fuel to circulate the engine, which can cause heavy damage to the engine and result in an expensive repair.
Without turning the ignition, put your car in neutral and push it towards somewhere safe and secure, ask someone to help you push if possible and place the car at a safe location and pull the handbrake to keep the car secure.
Our mobile unit can reach you anywhere in 30 minutes max and are operative 24/7 at your service. We recover the wrong fuel and put the right fuel enough to get you going. We offer no start, no fee guarantee.
Now, when you understand the steps you must take to prevent yourself from the disastrous outcome. We should look in to the scenarios of petrol in diesel engine or vice versa.
This mistake is more common for an obvious reason, petrol nozzle is a little thin and can fit into diesel filter neck without any problem. That makes it far easier for petrol to be put in a diesel car than the other way round. Worse news is that putting petrol in a diesel tank causes more damage than doing it the opposite way. Here is the explanation
Diesel and petrol have different ways to work the engine. Diesel acts as a lubricant to help fuel pump to do its job while petrol increases friction between the parts in the diesel engine. Friction in the diesel engine means damage and more petrol you pump into the engine more damage it will cause. Hence, we ask you not to start the car. HDI engines are more likely to cause the damage and if you end up circulating petrol in a diesel engine it means new fuel pumps, injectors, pipes, filters, fuel tank or ultimately the whole new engine.
This is not a common scenario as the diesel nozzle is bigger than the petrol filler neck and it does not fit, which makes the driver realize the mistake before they put the wrong fuel in the vehicle. On a similar note, diesel in a petrol car does not cause as mush damage as petrol in the diesel vehicle. Petrol works the engine by a spark from the spark plugs that start a chain reaction to drive the engine with a combustion process but diesel actually choke up the spark plugs and fuel system for being dense fuel.
As a result, your vehicle would not start and that results in not damaging the vehicle as much as it does in the opposite scenario. As long as you call us to recover the wrong fuel, there should not be any permanent damage to your vehicle.
Here are a few steps that you can take to avoid the wrong fuelling in your vehicle.
Usually petrol and diesel nozzles are color coded so pay attention to those colors before filling your vehicle. It pays to read the label where the nozzles hang and fuel grade indicator to avoid any slip ups. Placing a clear sticker on the fuel cap or inside the fuel cap is usually a massive help to let you remember which fuel to fill in your vehicle. Try not to be distracted by any sort of distractions and pay full attention once you enter a petrol pump and never get the fuel when you are hungry or stressed. Try avoiding filling up when you are in a hurry as your chances of making a mistake grow higher when you are in a hurry.
What ever you do, our services are always there to ensure your engine’s safety and preserve your pocket.
