Abbas Combe: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
If you have not fired up the motor as yet, don't. A drain and nothing more is nearly always what a car requires while the petrol is still sitting in your tank and the motor has not yet been started, which is why it is the following few minutes that count, not how much went in. Petrol in Diesel travels to your car wherever it has come to rest in Abbas Combe or the remainder of Somerset, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a drive, and drains and flushes it there. Ring us so our technicians shall tell you what comes next before you try much else.
Petrol in a diesel: what to do first
- Don't fire it up — and never depend on it if it starts. Here is the bit drivers have wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. A petrol motor filled with diesel normally just can't run, so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. A diesel given petrol generally starts, ticks over and drives off without complaint for a couple of miles. It is not all right. It is wearing the fuel system while you drive.
- Two tasks, diesel: it ignites, and on the way through it keeps your high-pressure fuel pump and injectors protected. Petrol only handles the one. That is why the car's ignition remains off too — flick it on and you commonly prime your system, and that's petrol exiting the tank for precisely those parts.
- Topping up removes nothing. It leaves you a bigger tank of the same mix, since a diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage as that guidance assumes — so do not put diesel on top to thin it. Octane is irrelevant too: super unleaded is petrol.
- A car that hasn't shifted is the simplest one to handle, so stay where you are if you reasonably can. Pulled up on the verge on Church Hill? Hazards on, then keep the vehicle there. A tricky location works for us better than a started motor.
- The van showing up instead of circling depends on two things: a postcode that starts BA8 0, and whatever is closest to you with a label on it. Keep both prepared before you dial.
- What got in, about how much, and also whether the motor has started — these three answers determine your whole call-out. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us.
Quarter past eight, a fast top-up on the drive in, and the penny drops somewhere around eleven — by that point the diesel Volkswagen Tiguan has been parked outside Templecombe for three hours. Phone then leave the car right where it is. The trip in is the part that matters here, because diesel does two jobs on its way through a motor: it burns, and before it ignites it lubricates that high-pressure fuel pump and its injectors. Petrol manages the first and not the second. So those few miles were travelled with your pump labouring on a fuel that had given up most of the protection it is designed around — which is why the question our engineers ask is how far you travelled, not how long the vehicle has been standing.
The awkward part is the bay, not the fuel. Motors either side of you, a trolley shelter behind, and occasionally a height barrier on the way in that determines if a technician can reach you at all — so when you phone from a car park like the one outside Morrisons, tell us how much space there's about you and which way round the vehicle is. Those we cover frequently. Should there be no space to work alongside the diesel Skoda Octavia, it gets rolled with the motor off, and not out of pedantry over a few seconds of running: priming happens at every start, more of that blend departs your tank for the pump, and two shunts into a roomier spot have quietly made a worse job of what was just a vehicle sitting still.
Someone will urge you to shift the car out of the gateway and fix it later. Don't. A wrongly fuelled diesel BMW 3 Series on the zig-zags outside Abbas and Templecombe Church School is a nuisance; the same vehicle started three more times to be helpful is a fuel system and not a tank. Each restart primes your lines and pulls more petrol through the fuel filter then into the pump. Stay put, let people grumble, and call us.
You set off at the end, once we have started the engine and made sure it runs smoothly on clean diesel, with the fuel system primed. Before that, in the car park outside The Half Moon Inn, the polluted fuel comes out of the tank, the fuel lines get rinsed and the fuel filter comes off where your Peugeot 308 has a serviceable one. Everything starts with three questions when our technicians get to your car: what got in, how much of it, and whether it has been fired up since.
Somebody sure of themselves will tell you to drain the car and put new diesel in. Only half right, that. Try it on a diesel Ford Kuga by St John the Baptist and the motor will start — which is precisely why it sounds like sense. Here is the catch: there's petrol left in your filter and the feed lines, and the first thing the engine does is suck it back through the pump once more. Draining a tank achieves nothing about fuel that already left your tank. Ring us. Your circuit gets rinsed, the fuel filter comes off where there is one worth removing, and that is what separates a repaired motor from one that just starts.
Can petrol be pumped out of your diesel on the forecourt?
A large chunk of the work gets completed at a pump, because that is where it mostly starts. The drain typically gets done there and then. Still on the forecourt at Shell? Given the site's agreement, that is a place we work, and often.
A filling station is the single spot the mistake can be stopped before the engine has started. Everywhere else — a car park, a drive, a lay-by — the vehicle was started and moved to get there, which means fuel was pulled from that tank, through your filter and into the high-pressure pump. That is not a disaster, and our technicians can still deal with it where it is. It does mean your lines and the filter need flushing as well as your tank, and that's settled by the few seconds between seeing the till receipt and going for the keys.
Roll the vehicle out of the way if the attendants offer, and they usually will. The next motorist gets past the petrol pump, and that's worth doing. Four vehicle lengths is not worth a restart.
Do our technicians reach your corner of Abbas Combe?
Abbas Combe is a rural village, and we head out to the town and to the places near it on the same trips: Templecombe, Horsington, Combe Throop, Yenston and Wilkinthroop.
Not on this list? That tells you nothing. The names above are simply the closest few, and nearly all towns across Somerset have a page of their own somewhere on our site. Assuming is the mistake to skip, above all on the border or somewhere your phone goes wrong. Call us to ask.
The patch the page spans is on our map. The lot is territory our technicians work: a roadside, a forecourt, a drive, a car park. You don't bring your car anywhere.
Stopped on the roadside anywhere in Abbas Combe?
Not everyone gets a sensible place to pull in. Hazards flashing in a lay-by somewhere, or stopped on the verge of The Hamlet as you noticed after setting off — our technicians take that call often enough that it's the normal kind.
Safe where you are? Wait with it. Not okay? Move out and away from it. Do not start up the engine to limp it somewhere safer — a diesel running on petrol will often oblige, and every mile it obliges for is dragging that mixture further into your fuel system. Carrying on causes your car far more harm than a van heading out to a tricky location, and that's no bother for us.
Petrol in a diesel, and your car has gone
under 50 miles from Abbas Combe, your M5 is what matters now. Some way along, and onto it in the first place: a misfuelled diesel will frequently manage both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is seldom a tidy stop. Power drains away, your idle gets uneven, and there may be smoke.
Pull off at the next sensible exit, turn off, and don't start it to move it. It alters what our technicians bring, so say so when you ring: on a longer run — anything near the under 25 miles to the closest city — take it the mixture has been through the filter, your pump and the fuel injectors.
Abbas Combe itself
Abbas Combe is a small village in inland Somerset, situated at an elevation of 91 metres and comprising predominantly semi-detached housing. Abbas Combe lies near the towns of Templecombe and Wells, and is surrounded by other nearby places such as Horsington and Combe Throop. Abbas Combe has a population of approximately 625 residents and is located about 17 miles from Wells, the nearest city. Abbas Combe is also around 105 miles west of London.
The job around Abbas Combe, step by step
- The replies alter the work, which is why our engineers ask before pricing: what was put in, how much of it, and whether your motor has run.
- The contaminated fuel comes out of your tank.
- Fuel lines are purged through and your filter cleaned, leaving nothing in your system that caused any of this.
- Bleeding your system follows, once new diesel is in.
- After it's fired up, our technicians make sure it runs correctly on new diesel.
Then it is ready to set off. All of this is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a garage, and when it has been caught soon, long-term damage is very uncommon.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Abbas Combe is a distinct job
AdBlue rather than petrol? Then the opening instruction is unchanged — your motor remains off — while the issue under it's a separate one altogether. Weakened diesel, and no lubrication left for your fuel system that relies on it. That's petrol. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Tip that in with the diesel and you get rust instead, plus residue.
AdBlue removal in Abbas Combe has a page of its own with the full story on it, including why it's frequently the more serious of the two. We cover both.
What a petrol-in-diesel drain will cost around Abbas Combe
Our engineers can't put one number on this page frankly, as the job isn't one job. What shifts it:
- This is the big one: whether the motor has been run, or driven.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel went into it.
- AdBlue or petrol, whichever got in.
- Where the car is, and if a van can sensibly get to and work on it.
Tell us the car, the amount and whether it has run, and you will get a firm answer instead of a range. For your car at home that is going nowhere and isn't pressing, works too.
Things we hear about petrol in diesel around Abbas Combe
I am on a forecourt around Abbas Combe. Can you drain the car here?
A fair share of this work happens there, so yes. Tell us which one you are at when you phone and we'll tell you whether our technicians can work there. With the owner's agreement our technicians attend Morrisons and the other forecourts nearby regularly.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
It rests on the proportion rather than the litres, and a lot more on whether the motor has run. What settles how much work is required is whether that mix has been drawn through your fuel system — because even though five litres in a nearly empty tank is a different situation from five in a full one, either way that is the query.
I drove the vehicle after putting petrol in my diesel. What now?
Turn off somewhere safe, then keep it that way after you stop. Not restarting it is the single most valuable thing available to you now. Driving does shift the trouble out of that tank then into your pump and injectors, yes, and it stays salvageable far more regularly than people assume.
Will a fuel drain void my warranty?
A drain then flush carried out properly is not an alteration and does not cancel a manufacturer's warranty. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause an argument with one, which is another reason to leave the car turned off.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. It belongs to a distinct fault from a bygone era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind restores. The pump still has to cope with it, because the tank still has petrol in it later on.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
You don't need one. Your car is drained and cleaned wherever it is, with no need to bring it to a franchised dealer.
Is your vehicle still with you?
Shut off is how the car stays.
Switch it off somewhere sensible and keep it off, if you have already driven it. Cold, still, going nowhere: that is the best position to be in. People fear this much more than they need to.
Across Somerset and in Abbas Combe: call-out fuel draining, at home or on the forecourt or at the kerbside.