Every year around 150,000 drivers put the wrong type of fuel in their car. That is roughly 1 person every three and a half minutes. Most of these cases are from people filling up their diesel car or vehicle with 
unleaded petrol by mistake. If you’re not used to the vehicle you’re driving, or are distracted at the fuel pump, it can happen. Also, the neck of the fuel tank is wider on diesels than it is on petrol vehicles, so the nozzle of an unleaded petrol pump can fit. With a petrol car, the opening is smaller and can’t accommodate a diesel fuel pump nozzle. If you’ve filled up with the wrong type of fuel, then it is important to remember that you must NOT start the car and attempt to drive it. Driving a diesel car that has been filled with unleaded petrol can can severely damage the fuel pump and other parts of the fuel system. If you’re still on the garage forecourt, ask someone to help push the vehicle to a safe place and contact a mobile fuel drain company who will come to your location to drain and flush your engine of the unleaded petrol, so that you can continue your journey. Sometimes people have filled their diesel car up with unleaded petrol and drove off without even realising it. That is until they notice that the engine has started to get very noisy under load, and that there’s smoke coming out of the exhaust. As we mentioned earlier, driving a vehicle with over 5 litres of wrong fuel in the engine can cause a lot of damage.
What Happens If If I Put Unleaded Petrol In A Diesel Car?
Common problems would be that the engine wont stop once it’s started, which is caused by damage that the unleaded petrol has done to the seals on the plunger. If these seals have been damaged then fuel will keep on flowing to the engine, hence it not stopping. You’ll also lose power at high speed, which is caused by damage to the fuel pump. You might also start to lose power after about 30 minutes of driving. Unleaded fuel can wreck diesel engine lubrication processes and is particularly damaging to a diesel engine’s costly, high-pressure fuel pump, which operates at up to 2,050bar (30,000psi). Petrol removes the pump case hardening and if a film of hardened metal disintegrates into swarf it will greatly harm or even wreck an engine’s internal organs. No matter if you’ve drove the vehicle or not, if you’ve put more than 5 litres of unleaded petrol into your diesel car, get in touch with a wrong fuel removal company and get it sorted as soon as possible. The longer that contaminated fuel stays in your car, the more damage it will cause, which in turn means it’s going to cost you more to fix. Most wrong fuel recovery specialists can drain and flush unleaded petrol from a diesel engine for about £150 – £300.