Wrong fuel on the A696

Why wrong fuel happens on the A696

Airport hire cars are one of the single most reliable sources of misfuel work anywhere. A driver collects an unfamiliar vehicle, does not check the fuel type on the paperwork, and makes the first fill a day or two later at the nearest forecourt — very often on this road, on the way back to drop the car off.

The nozzle-geometry point applies here as everywhere: an unleaded nozzle drops straight into a diesel filler neck, while a diesel nozzle is usually too wide for a petrol one. On a road like this, where a large share of drivers are part-way through a long leg and filling somewhere they have never filled before, that asymmetry shows up as a steady run of petrol-in-diesel jobs.

Roadside safety, in order

1. Do not restart the engine On a live carriageway this matters more, not less. A restarted engine turns a drain into a possible pump and injector job.
2. Hazards on, get out on the nearside If you are on a hard shoulder or a verge, leave by the passenger side and stand behind the barrier, up the bank, away from the traffic.
3. Call 999 or National Highways on 0300 123 5000 first if you are in a live lane If the vehicle cannot be moved off a running lane, that call comes before ours. Then call us.
4. Call 01293 248666 Tell us the junction or the nearest marker post, the vehicle, and which fuel went in. You get a price before anyone travels.
5. We drain and flush on site Where it is safe to work, the job is done where the vehicle stands. Where it is not, we say so rather than turning up and charging you to find out.

If it is not safe to work where you are

There are stretches of the A696 where draining at the roadside is not a sensible thing to do — a live lane, a blind bend, no verge. We will tell you that on the phone rather than after arriving, and recovery to somewhere workable is the right answer in those cases. Being told honestly costs you nothing; being told on arrival costs you a call-out.

What the wrong fuel does on its way through

Diesel lubricates as it passes; petrol dissolves that film and acts as a solvent. Run a diesel high-pressure pump on petrol and it wears fast, shedding fine metal into the injectors behind it. None of that happens while the fuel sits in the tank. All of it starts the moment the engine turns over.

A vehicle that stops on the Western Bypass, the Central Motorway or approaching the Tyne Tunnel is an operational problem before it is a fuel problem, and getting clear comes before everything else.

Background reading: Diesel fuel — Wikipedia.