Bunkers Hill: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
Do not turn on the engine. If the fuel is still inside your tank and the motor has not yet turned over, a tank drain is nearly always all it requires — and that gets decided in the coming few minutes, not by how much went in. Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans wrong-fuelled cars where they stand, throughout Bunkers Hill and the remainder of Lancashire, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a driveway. Ring us before all else happens, so you will see what comes after that.
What to do first about petrol in a diesel
- Whenever you drive, the pump and your injectors suffer. That is why you don't fire it up, and why you never trust it once it has started. The thing about petrol in a diesel specifically — the point motorists get wrong — is that it drives off normally for the first mile or two. Diesel in a petrol engine typically cannot run at all, which stops the driver and stops the wear with them. This one lets you keep going.
- Diesel combusts, and before it ignites it greases — the high-pressure pump, its injectors. Petrol handles only the burning. So leave the car's ignition off as well: flicking it on is frequently all it takes to prime that system, and priming draws petrol from your tank into exactly those components.
- That advice assumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not. Tip diesel on top and nothing at all is cleared; what you end with is a bigger tank of the same blend. And no, the grade makes no difference — super unleaded is simply petrol.
- Sit tight if it is sensible to. Hazards on, engine off, keep the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Peel Road, anywhere — a tricky location for us trumps a started motor, and nothing is simpler for us to sort than a vehicle that never moved.
- Check where you are before ringing. A postcode beginning BB8 9, and the name of whatever is next to you. Otherwise the technician circles rather than arriving.
- Phone 0333 366 0103. Expect three things — what got in, approximately how much, and whether the car has been started. The answers shape whatever happens next.
Quarter past eight. A quick top-up on the trip in. Around eleven it occurs to you, and by then your diesel Renault Megane has sat outside Colne for three hours. Call us then leave the vehicle where it sits. What is key is the run in, as diesel both ignites and — before that — greases the pump and the fuel injectors, but petrol only ever burns. Those few miles worked your pump on a fluid robbed of a lot of its protection, and no quantity of standing in a car park puts any of that back. Hence the question about distance instead of hours sitting, and hence the request to leave your keys be until we arrive.
The phone call our engineers want goes like this: diesel Nissan Qashqai, a couple of litres of unleaded, driven a couple of miles, now switched off at Asda. What we are actually asking is how much fuel the pump has sucked — not how long ago it was.
Out there normal, back gutless. If that was the trip to Colne Roundabout, look at that tank. Diesel gets thinned by petrol, and thin fuel leaks past the close gaps supposed to build injection pressure — so every further mile the diesel Mercedes C-Class covered, the less pressure it held onto. Somewhere sensible, turn off, ring us.
Hire car? Company car? Call them before us. Some contracts want the firm to sign off the work, and that's much quicker dealt with up front than later on. Then call us about the BMW 5 Series, the diesel one, by Pendle Leisure Centre. Do not worry that you can't say how full the tank was — almost nobody can two days into a vehicle, and it's something we work out on site. The reason for asking: harm from petrol in a diesel is a matter of share. A couple of litres in an almost empty tank make a far stronger blend than in a full one, and petrol is built to resist the very thing a diesel needs of it, which is igniting when compressed. Stronger blend, more knocking, more smoke, flatter throttle.
Someone confident will tell you to drain the car and put clean diesel in. Half true, that. Try it on a diesel Citroen C3 close to Sacred Heart Catholic Church and the motor will start — which is exactly why it sounds like sense. Here's the catch: there is petrol left in the filter and the feed lines, and the first thing your engine does is pull it back through your pump once more. Emptying a tank achieves nothing about fuel that already left that tank. Phone us. The circuit gets rinsed, your filter comes off where there is one worth removing, and that's what separates a fixed motor from one that simply starts.
At the forecourt: clearing petrol from a diesel
A good chunk of the job gets done at a pump, because that is where it mostly kicks off. We work on garage forecourts regularly, with the station's consent, and so if you are still at EG On the Move that is typically where the drain happens.
At the forecourt, this is stopped with the motor never started, and no place else manages that. Fuel sucked out of the tank and through the fuel filter, right to the high-pressure pump, is what happens when your engine is switched on and your car is driven to where it is now: the car park, the drive or the lay-by, anywhere other than the forecourt. So the flush includes the fuel filter and the lines as well as that tank. That's still not a disaster, and our engineers deal with it where the vehicle sits. What settles it is whether the key was reached for in the seconds after the receipt was read.
Move it out of the way if the attendants suggest it, and they usually will. The next motorist gets through the pump, and that's worth doing. Moving it four bays does not justify cranking it.
Coverage around Bunkers Hill
The same runs take us to Primet Bridge, Greenfield, Church Clough, Lenches and Waterside as well as Bunkers Hill, which is a residential suburb.
Our engineers still come. The places above are merely the nearest neighbours, and a page is there for nearly all locations in Lancashire, so an absence from the list isn't an absence from the coverage. Close to a border, or anywhere a satnav can't find? Phone to ask rather than guessing.
See our map for the ground shown on this page. We work roadside, at forecourts, on driveways and in car parks across all of it, and your car does not need to travel to us.
Stuck by the kerbside anywhere around Bunkers Hill?
Some drivers have no safe spot to pull in whatsoever. Set off, then realised? Landed along the verge beside Bolton Street, or sat in some lay-by with the hazards going? That is a normal call here. Not a rare one.
Okay right there? Remain beside it. Not safe? Get out and clear of it. Do not fire it up to reach a safer location. It will go — a diesel on petrol usually obliges — and each mile of obliging pulls that blend deeper into your fuel system. However inconvenient the spot, it is no problem for us to come to it, and that's much better for the car than driving on.
So you've driven it? Petrol in a diesel after a few miles
Your M65 is the one which counts here, and runs under a mile from Bunkers Hill. It will often take you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it's smoke, an uneven idle and power draining away — not a neat stop. Wrongly fuelled diesels rarely give you one of those.
The next safe exit is the one to take. Turn off there, and leave the restarting alone. Assume the worst of it on a long run. Anything approaching the under 25 miles to the nearest city, and the contamination has been through your filter, through your pump, through your injectors. Say so when you ring. What our technicians bring differs.
Bunkers Hill itself
Bunkers Hill is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing. Bunkers Hill sits near the towns of Primet Bridge and Greenfield, and is close to Church Clough. Bunkers Hill has a population of around 4911 people and is located at an elevation of 152 metres, with Bradford being the nearest city at 18.1 miles away.
When we reach you in Bunkers Hill: what happens
- Our technicians establish what went in, how much, and if the engine has run. The replies alter the work, which is why our technicians ask before giving a price.
- The tank is cleared of it.
- Fuel lines are purged through and the fuel filter cleared, leaving nothing in the fuel system that started any of this.
- Priming follows, once fresh diesel is in.
- It is started with fresh diesel in it, and our engineers check that it's running correctly.
Your car is then ready for you to drive away. Our technicians do all of this wherever the vehicle has stopped, which means it never has to be taken to a workshop, and when it has been caught quickly, it's very uncommon for there to be long-term damage.
Bunkers Hill AdBlue removal is a different matter
If what got in was AdBlue rather than petrol, the opening step is the same — don't crank it — but this issue is not. The lubrication a fuel system relies on is stripped away by petrol, which thins the diesel. Rust and residue are what a diesel tank ends up with instead, because AdBlue is urea in water.
We cover both, and AdBlue removal around Bunkers Hill has its own page with the full story — including why it's often the more serious of the two.
What a petrol-in-diesel drain will cost around Bunkers Hill
One price wouldn't be honest here, since this isn't one job. These are the things that change it:
- This is the key one: whether your engine has been started, or driven.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, measured against how much the tank takes.
- Which was put in: unleaded or AdBlue.
- Whether a van can safely reach the car and work on it, which depends on where your car is.
Tell us your vehicle, the amount and whether it has run, and you'll get a straight answer rather than a range. If it is not time-critical — your car is at home and going nowhere — is fine too.
Petrol in diesel: everyday questions around Bunkers Hill
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station in Bunkers Hill?
Yes — forecourts are where a large part of this takes place. Consent from the site is the condition. Given that, a forecourt like Sainsbury's is somewhere we are often enough, along with the rest of them locally — so name yours on the phone and you will hear whether working there's possible.
How much petrol is too much for a diesel?
Whether the motor has run counts much more, though the proportion counts too, instead of the litres. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a separate matter from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that settles how much work is required is if that mixture has been pulled through the system.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. What next?
Turn off somewhere sensible, then keep it that way after you stop. Driving is what moves the problem from that tank into the pump and injectors — but it's recoverable far more frequently than people expect, and the single most valuable thing you can do now is not restart the car.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
It is not an alteration, and so a drain and flush carried out properly does not void a manufacturer's warranty. Another good reason to leave it turned off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a dispute with one.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old remedy for a distinct problem and it does not restore what petrol has diluted. After that? Still petrol in that tank, and a pump that has to live with the stuff.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
There's no need to take it to a franchised dealer, as our technicians drain and clean the vehicle wherever it is.
Still with your vehicle?
Keep the engine switched off.
Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, turn off, and no restarting the car later. This is recoverable from a lot more regularly than people fear, and a parked, cold motor is the best position to be in.
Clearing misfilled motors, Bunkers Hill and the rest of Lancashire, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.