Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Castle Green? Don't Start It

How many miles you went is what our engineers ask about, not how long your motor has been parked — and this is why. Diesel does two tasks on its way through an engine: it ignites, and before burning it protects that injection pump and the injectors. Petrol handles the first only. So a fast top-up on the way in, it dawning on you somewhere around eleven, and a diesel Renault Clio left at Kenilworth since quarter past eight shows those couple of miles were covered with your pump running on a liquid stripped of a great deal of its protection. Call us and leave the vehicle just where it sits.

Every start primes your fuel system and sucks more of that mixture out of the tank and towards your pump — which is why a car moved twice into a roomier space has silently grown into a bigger job than one left just where it stopped. So if our engineers cannot work next to the diesel Peugeot 308, our technicians move the vehicle without firing it. None of that is fussiness about a handful of seconds of running. Car parks like the one outside Waitrose our technicians visit often, and your fuel is rarely the awkward part: that bay is. Cars either side, a trolley shelter behind, sometimes a height barrier at the entrance deciding if a van reaches you at all. Tell us how penned in you are, and which way the vehicle points.

Your diesel Nissan Qashqai will have seemed entirely ordinary on the way back from Priors Field Primary School. They do, and that is the catch with petrol in a diesel and not the other way round. Put diesel in a petrol car and it generally won't run, and so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. Put petrol in a diesel and it starts, ticks over and drives off as though nothing has happened — all while the high-pressure fuel pump does its work without the protection the fuel is meant to be supplying. Nothing tells you, since from the driver's seat there's nothing to warn you about. Ring us with roughly how far you travelled and how hard you pushed it; the second one matters more than the first.

Phoning from close to Castle Green WWII Air Raid Shelter? Three things help us. The filler — which side of your car it's on. Room for a van alongside you, without the road being blocked. And whether anything has run since the fill-up. The location itself scarcely counts: on-street is where our engineers work most, and we'd much rather have a cramped spot than a car a person has driven somewhere easier. Then it is a drain for the Vauxhall Astra, a filter change where there's one worth changing, lines purged, fresh fuel put round the entire system. By now the worst of that is in the fuel lines and not your tank.

What takes place next is the problem. The motor immediately draws the petrol left resting in the fuel filter and the feed lines back round through your pump a second time, because emptying a tank does nothing about fuel that has already left it. Drain it then put clean diesel in, someone sure of themselves will tell you — and that suggestion is only half right, since do it to a diesel Volkswagen Polo parked up, The Keep say, and the thing starts, which is what makes it sound reasonable. Ring us instead. Our engineers flush your circuit and take your filter off where your vehicle has a working one, and that's the difference between the car being repaired and the vehicle just starting.

Castle Green: stranded where you pulled up

Some people get no suitable spot to pull over whatsoever. If you worked it out after setting off and ended up on the verge beside Avenue Road, or in a lay-by somewhere with your hazards flashing, that is a normal call for us rather than an odd one.

Remain with the car when it is safe to wait in it, but out of the car when it isn't. Don't start up your engine to limp it somewhere better — a diesel running on petrol will usually oblige, and every mile it obliges for is pulling the mix further into your fuel system. However awkward the place, it is no problem for us to come to it, and that is much better for the car than driving on.

Where's Castle Green?

Castle Green is a suburban area located on the riverside in Warwickshire, with a mix of housing types but predominantly detached homes. Castle Green sits at an elevation of around 90 metres, close to the nearby places of Abbey Fields, Abbey End, and The Spring. Castle Green is situated near Coventry, approximately 5.3 miles from the city centre, and is part of the wider West Midlands region. Castle Green has a population of around 2471 residents.

How much is a petrol-in-diesel drain around Castle Green?

Frankly, no single number belongs on a page like this. This job differs. Here is what varies it:

• This is the big one: whether the motor has been started, or driven.
• Wrong fuel in, against what your tank takes — that proportion.
• The sort of liquid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
• Where your vehicle is, and whether a technician can safely reach and work on it.

The car, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back clear rather than as a range. If it's not urgent — the vehicle is at home and going nowhere — is fine too.

Is there a safe quantity of petrol in a diesel?

Whether the motor has run matters far more, though the proportion matters too, rather than the litres. Five litres in a nearly empty tank is a different case from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that decides how much work is needed is if that mixture has been pulled through the system.

My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?

A manufacturer's warranty survives a drain then flush done to a proper standard, which is no alteration at all. Another reason to leave it turned off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a disagreement with one.