I’ve added the wrong type of fuel, what should I do?

We all have our ‘moments’ from time to time. Moments where we forget to do things,perhaps something slips your mind. One of these moments could be going to fill your car up with petrol and realising you’ve put diesel in it, or visa versa!

It is estimated that around 150,000 drivers put the wrong fuel in their vehicles every year! So it is a rather common mistake that breakdown recovery companies are used to dealing with. So, should you find yourself faced with this problem, then you might panic and think, “WHAT DO I DO NOW?!”  So we’re going to give you some helpful tips to follow so you know how to deal with the situation, should you come across it in future.

Petrol in diesel

DO NOT TURN ON THE IGNITION. Before you turn the ignition on, you need to remove the fuel from the tank as it is now contaminated with petrol. This needs to be replaced with clean fuel and once this has been done, you can safely turn the ignition on.

Putting petrol in a diesel car reduces the lubricant and therefore encourages metal on metal contact, which can again be damaging to your cars functionality.

Diesel in petrol

Out of the two, this is the least common as diesel nozzles tend to be larger than the neck of petrol tanks on the majority of modern petrol cars. However, if this were to still happen then, as with putting petrol in a diesel car; DO NOT TURN ON THE IGNITION and make sure the contaminated petrol is drained out of the car and replaced with clean fuel, before the car can be started up.

The consequences are less damaging with diesel in petrol, however, this doesn’t mean you get away entirely scot-free. There will likely be smoke coming out of the engine and it will run rather differently (for the worse).

 

Why should I not turn on the ignition?

If you were to turn the ignition on with the wrong fuel type in the car, it will start pumping the fuel towards the engine . This will then contaminate vital components of the engine and the further into the cars system the contaminated fuel gets, the more expensive it will be to rectify.

 

What should I do if I’ve already turned the ignition on?

Quite often, people don’t even realise they have put the wrong fuel type in their car until they are halfway through their journey and the engine suddenly begins to give up. If this is the case, then you should immediately pull over into a safe place and call for breakdown assistance.

 

What if I’ve only put in a little bit?

This requires a bit of calculation. If you’ve put in less than 10% than it should be okay to just top-up with the right fuel. However, if you really don’t know how much you have put in, then it’s better to call for assistance and get the tank drained.

 

Either way, if you get stuck then calling a reliable breakdown service is the most important thing to do. Their trained mechanics will be able to see to the problem and get you back on the road in no time at all!