What Happens If You Put Petrol In A Diesel Car Engine?

What happens when you accidently put petrol fuel in a diesel car engine? Misfuelling is a common mistake, and there is a reason why this happens to drivers at gas stations. But, before we cover the topic in depth, let’s answer the question on everyone’s mind.

If you happen to put petrol in a diesel car engine, pull over immediately. The more you drive the car, the worse the problem will become. Call a tow truck and have the car taken to a car shop or trusted mechanic. Have them drain the gas tank and put the correct fuel in. This should resolve the issue.

One of the most common reasons found upon interviewing the drivers is a number of nozzles at the same machine and the new drivers usually got confused with these multiple options. Although the nozzle sizes are different according to the requirements of the fuel tank.

The government has taken initiatives to standardize the fuel tanks and fuel filling nozzles. They are small and large in size but the problem starts when a smaller nozzle fits in the large counterpart’s place and starts filling the fuel. In most cases, this happens to diesel engines.

The diesel fuel tanks have bigger nozzles, and they easily become the victim of the misfuelling. But did you know, how dangerous it is to fill in a diesel-powered vehicle with petrol?

It is one of the most horrible realities that petrol works like an abrasive material and damages the entire engine.

Let’s get in detail to make a clear understanding that how it works?

Petrol Vs. Diesel Engines

Petrol engines are completely different from diesel engines. Petrol engines use a spark ignition system that takes power from the battery packs and alternators. This power passes through the wire and the spark plug to create a spark inside the combustion chambers at a compression cycle. This process is what keeps the engine running.

Diesel engines are ignited with hot, compressed air. 

Petrol works like a cleansing agent and removes any type of lubrication effect very easily and when put into the diesel engines, petrol removes the lubrication of precision parts and left them to die.

Modern diesel cars use diesel as a lubricant agent on their high-pressure fuel delivery systems and fuel pumps of the vehicle.

When petrol goes into the fuel tank, the engine has no issues with a small amount of petrol in the diesel and it can burn it easily, however, the fuel delivery system which uses fuel as a lubricant will go dry due to petrol and face some problems in few moments.

Generally, this happens very quickly because a petrol nozzle can fit in the diesel fuel tank very easily and drivers start filling the petrol in the diesel fuel tank.

Generally, when this happens, it requires the entire fuel delivery system flushing to make sure that all petrol has been removed properly.

By running dry, there might be some metal debris that went into the system due to the high pressure. Most of the time, the pump and other precision components need to be changed. Petrol has never been known as a lubricant at all; it is a cleansing agent in general as compared to diesel.

The Damage Was Done By Petrol

Pre-detonation of fuel done the initial damage on the engine and then it comes other components because diesel engines run on very high compression ratios than petrol engines. This is due to diesel less volatile qualities as compared to petrol.

Usually, in the case of petrol and air mixture, it is possible that petrol can burn early under pressure than the diesel in the combustion chambers.

This way, when pre-ignition happens, it attempts to force the pistons to push back even far before the actual powerful ignition or mature ignition in the chambers.

These additional unwanted forces on all the cylinders start working and the engine losses its power to them. They become disastrous for the internal engine components as well and start killing the engine. There are several symptoms when this starts happening to the engine.

These symptoms must be noticed by the driver to save his entire engine from massive damage on the internal parts.

According to the experts, an engine damaged by the wrong fuel can cost you up to 8000GBP, depends on your make and model but at the same time, if the model is luxurious and it has relatively higher damage to the engine, the cost can be even higher.

Symptoms of The Wrong Fuel

Mostly the symptoms depend on the vehicle type and make of the car, but the most common symptoms of the wrong fuel are as follows.

Firstly, the vehicle would take a long self to start and won’t start easily.

Secondly, the amount of smoke on the exhaust would increase. On startup a white smoke and then upon accelerating a lot of smoke emissions.

Thirdly, the vehicle engine would misfire more frequently and would run so severely on the lower revs and won’t be able to reach the higher revs due to premature ignition and catastrophic forces caused by the premature ignition.

The next most important task after taking notice of these symptoms, first of all, drain the fuel tank as soon as possible to remove any bad fuel in it. Contact the local garage to arrange recovery.

Do not even try to start the vehicle and try to take it to the garage by driving? As for recovery and let the garage guys do the rest. It would include flushing of the entire fuel delivery system and oil pump.

A bonus tip; if the fuel tank is already more than half full and the driver ads up few pints of petrol by mistake or whatever, adding up more diesel to the tank with the things in mind that it would dilute the petrol and things would be ok, this is not the case at all, adding up more diesel won’t solve the problem at all. To save the engine, do whatever is the standard practice.

According to the experience of many drivers, adding up more diesel actually leads toward an even horrible situation and puts the death of the engine in silent mode. This particular situation silently kills the engine, and by the end of the fuel tank, the engine went completely exhausted due to small unnoticeable misfiring and backfires.

If the driver is lucky enough and realizes that he is adding the wrong fuel into the vehicle, he must be aware of the reality that the petrol would kill the engine. He must act then as a proactive driver and turn the engine to shut completely. Do not start the engine until the complete flushing of the system completes.

To do this, call the wrong fuel assist services, there are many mobile services available in the near. The majority of wrong fuel services do it for under 100 quid and will flush your entire fuel delivery system. They would flush your fuel tank and clean up the rest to make sure there is no fuel left in the engine fuel delivery system.

It is better to use a wet-dry car vacuum to suck the fuel. A new fresh fuel would be added, and the engineer would start your engine by releasing the air in the fuel delivery system.

Conclusion

Save the wrong fueling and save money by saving your car.