Blandford Forum: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
Don't turn on the engine. If the fuel is still in your tank and the motor has not yet run, a tank drain is nearly always all it requires — and that gets decided in the following few minutes, not by how much got in. Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans wrong-fuelled vehicles where they are, all over Blandford Forum and the remainder of Dorset, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a private drive. Call us before anything else starts, so you'll know what comes after that.
What now? Petrol in a diesel, step by step
- Whenever you drive, the pump and the injectors wear down. That is why you do not start the car, and why you never believe it once it has started. The catch about petrol in a diesel in particular — the point motorists get wrong — is that it drives away fine for the first mile or two. Diesel in a petrol motor normally cannot run at all, which stops the person and stops the damage with them. This one lets you carry on.
- Leave the ignition off too. Diesel does two roles: it combusts, and before it ignites it greases that injection pump and the injectors. Petrol handles the first and not the second. Switching the car's ignition on is usually enough to prime your system, which pulls the petrol out of your tank then into exactly those parts.
- That advice assumes a diesel fuel system copes with petrol by percentage. It doesn't. Put diesel on top and nothing at all is taken out; what you get is a larger tank of the same mixture. And no, the grade makes no difference — super unleaded is simply petrol.
- Sit tight if it is safe to. Hazards on, ignition off, leave the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Salisbury Street, anywhere — a difficult location for us trumps a started motor, and nothing is quicker for us to sort than a car that never shifted.
- Have your location prepared before you call. A postcode starting DT11 7 and whatever is closest to you with a label on it is the difference between the van arriving and the van circling.
- Phone 0333 366 0103. Anticipate three questions — what was put in, approximately how much, and if your car has been turned over. Those answers settle all that comes after.
The drive back would roughly double it, for no reason at all. One commute has already pushed a real volume of petrol-thinned diesel through the high-pressure fuel pump of your Volkswagen Golf. So leave it where it sits. Phone us from the platform if that is handier — no one needs you standing over the vehicle outside Holton Heath whilst we get on, and tonight is better than finding out on Monday.
The tricky part is the bay, not your fuel. Motors either side of you, a trolley shelter behind, and now and then a height barrier on the way in that decides if our van can reach you at all — so when you phone from a car park like the one outside Morrisons, mention how much space there is around you and which way round the car is. Those our engineers visit regularly. Should there be no room to work next to your diesel Renault Megane, it gets moved with your engine off, and not out of fussiness over a few seconds of running: priming occurs at every start, more of the blend departs the tank for your pump, and two shunts into a nicer space have gradually made a bigger job of what was simply a car sitting still.
You drive off at the end, once we have started the engine and checked it runs smoothly on fresh diesel, with the fuel system primed. Before that, in the car park at King's Arms Hotel, the polluted fuel comes out of your tank, the lines get flushed and the fuel filter comes off where your Nissan Qashqai has a serviceable one. It all begins with three questions when we get to the vehicle: what went in, how much of it, and whether it has been fired up since.
The pump is not turning, so whatever the diesel Mercedes C-Class did on the way to Woodhouse Gardens, none of it is going on now. Nothing gets worse while it sits. Take your time over this — but do not drive the car home to buy any.
What happens next is the problem. The engine straight away draws the petrol left sitting in your filter and the feed lines back round through the pump a second time, because emptying a tank does nothing about fuel that has already left it. Drain it and put fresh diesel in, somebody certain will tell you — and that suggestion is only half right, since do it to a diesel Vauxhall Astra parked up, Market Place say, and the thing starts, which is what makes it sound sensible. Ring us instead. Our engineers flush your system and take your filter off where the car has a working one, and that is the difference between the vehicle being repaired and your car simply starting.
At the forecourt: clearing petrol from your diesel
Most of the work begins at a forecourt, meaning a large share of it gets done at one. The drain generally happens on the spot. Still on the forecourt at Tesco? Given the station's consent, that is a place our technicians work, and regularly.
At a forecourt, the mistake gets halted with your engine never fired, and nowhere else manages it. We can still deal with it where it stands, even away from the forecourt. In a car park, on a drive or in a lay-by, the vehicle has been switched on and driven there, and that pulled fuel through the fuel filter then into your high-pressure pump, right from that tank. None of that is a calamity, but the flush then has to go past your tank to the lines and the fuel filter, and the few seconds between reading your receipt and reaching for the key are what determine that.
The staff will usually happily wheel the car clear of the petrol pump so the next customer can get by. That's worth doing. Rolling it four bays does not justify firing the motor.
Blandford Forum plus the towns next to it
These same rounds take us to Blandford St Mary, Lower Blandford St Mary, Bryanston, Littleton and Langton Long Blandford besides Blandford Forum, which is a riverside town.
Our technicians do come. The places above are only the closest neighbours, and a page is there for the majority of places in Dorset, so an absence from the list isn't an absence from the coverage. Contact us and check rather than assuming — borders particularly, and anywhere the satnav tends to get wrong.
The patch the page covers sits on this map. Roadside, forecourt, drive, car park: every bit of that is ground our technicians cover, and none of it needs your vehicle to move to us.
Stuck at the roadside in Blandford Forum
Some people find no suitable spot to pull over at all. Hazards flashing in a lay-by somewhere, or stopped on the verge beside Bryanston Street because you realised after setting off — we take that call so often that it's the usual kind.
Remain beside the vehicle while it is wise to wait in it, but clear of it when it is not. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol pulls the mix further into your fuel system — and oblige it often will, which is why your motor does not get restarted to limp somewhere handier. However difficult the spot, it's no problem for us to come to it, and that is a lot better for your car than driving on.
Petrol in a diesel, and the vehicle has moved
This is where the local M27 comes in, under 50 miles from Blandford Forum. A drop in power, a lumpy idle, some smoke: those are the symptoms when they come, instead of a tidy stop — and a misfilled diesel will frequently get you onto it and some distance along before anything seems wrong at all.
The next safe junction is the one to take. Turn off there, then leave the restarting alone. On a longer run — anything near the under 25 miles to the closest city — take it the contamination has been through your filter, the pump and your injectors, and say so when you phone. It affects what we bring.
A bit about Blandford Forum
Blandford Forum is a town situated on the River Stour in Dorset, with a mix of old and new buildings, including many terraced houses. Blandford Forum has a population of around 11480 people and is located near several smaller settlements, including Blandford St Mary and Lower Blandford St Mary. Blandford Forum sits at an elevation of approximately 40 metres above sea level, near the town of Bryanston. Blandford Forum is about 21.8 miles from Salisbury and 99 miles from London.
What we do when our engineers get to you around Blandford Forum
- The replies alter the work, which is why our technicians ask before quoting: what was put in, how much of it, and if the engine has run.
- That tank is emptied of it.
- Lines purged, filter cleared. Whatever remains after that isn't the thing that started the issue.
- Fresh diesel goes in, and then your system gets primed.
- Our technicians start the car and check it runs smoothly on fresh diesel.
From there, you're ready to pull away. There is no need for a garage at any stage, as the work is all done where your car is, and when it is caught early, long-term damage is very unusual.
A different problem: AdBlue in a diesel tank around Blandford Forum
The issue is not the same, though the first rule is — do not fire it up — if what went in was AdBlue rather than petrol. Petrol thins the diesel and removes the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Rust and deposits are what a diesel tank ends up with instead, as AdBlue is urea dissolved in water.
Both are ours. There's a separate Blandford Forum page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it usually turns out to be the worse of the two.
Budgeting for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain around Blandford Forum
Truthfully, no single number belongs on a page like this. The job changes. Here's what moves it:
- Whether the engine has been run or driven. This is the big one.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, compared with how much that tank holds.
- AdBlue or petrol, whichever was put in.
- Whether our van can sensibly reach the vehicle and work on it, which hinges on where the vehicle is.
A firm answer rather than a range is what you get for telling us three things: your car, the amount, and whether it has run. Motor at home, going nowhere, nothing urgent about it — is ideal for that.
Questions our engineers get about petrol in diesel around Blandford Forum
I am on a forecourt in Blandford Forum. Can you drain the car here?
Plenty of what we do happens nowhere else. So yes. Our technicians attend Esso and the other forecourts nearby routinely, with the owner's permission — tell us which one you're at when you call and we'll tell you if we can work there.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Whether the motor has run matters a lot more, though the ratio matters too, rather than the litres. A nearly empty tank with five litres in it, against a full one with the same five: distinct scenarios, definitely. Either way, the work required comes down to one thing, which is if the system has had that mixture pulled through it.
I drove the vehicle after putting petrol in my diesel. Now what?
Stop safely. Off. Nothing after that. Driving shifts the trouble along — out of that tank, into the pump and injectors. Motorists fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one genuinely valuable thing left to you isn't restarting the car.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
It isn't an alteration, and so a drain then flush carried out properly doesn't invalidate a manufacturer's warranty. Another reason to leave it turned off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause an argument with one.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
No. It belongs to a distinct fault from a different era, and petrol has weakened something no oil of that kind puts back. Petrol stays in that tank after that, whatever else goes in, and the pump gets no reprieve from it.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
There is no need to bring it to a main dealer, since our technicians drain and clean your car wherever it is.
Waiting next to it?
Switched off is the way the car stays.
If you have already driven the car, pull in somewhere sensible, switch it off then keep it off. A stationary, cold vehicle is the best place to be in, and this is recoverable from much more commonly than people expect.
At the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home — on-site fuel draining in Blandford Forum and throughout Dorset.