Colebrooke: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With the tank still holding the fuel and the motor not yet turned over, nearly every job takes only a drain, so keep your engine off. That outcome is decided in the minutes immediately after the fill-up, and not by the amount that got in. Across Colebrooke and the remainder of Devon, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and flushes it where it sits, whether by a roadside, on a driveway or at a forecourt. One ring to us will be sufficient: our team shall explain what happens from here. Make that straight away.
What to do first about petrol in a diesel
- Do not start the vehicle. Fired up all the same? Then never trust it. Diesel in a petrol car normally will not run, and so the motorist stops and the harm ends with them. Petrol in a diesel? It starts. It idles. It moves off normally, for a couple of miles. Motorists get that confused. It isn't okay — the fuel system is wearing down every mile you do.
- Leave the car's ignition alone also. Diesel has two tasks: it burns, and before it combusts it lubricates that injection pump and those injectors. Petrol handles the first but not the second. Turning the ignition on is frequently all it takes to prime your system, which draws this petrol out of the tank and into exactly those parts.
- That advice supposes a diesel fuel system copes with petrol by percentage. It will not. Put diesel on top and nothing at all is cleared; what you have is a fuller tank of the same blend. And no, the octane makes no difference — super unleaded is simply petrol.
- A motor that hasn't moved is the easiest one to sort, so remain where you are if you safely can. Pulled up on the verge on The Meadows? Hazards on, and leave the car there. An odd spot works for us better than a started engine.
- The van arriving instead of circling rests on two things: a postcode starting EX17 5, and whatever is next to you with a sign on it. Keep both ready before you phone.
- Call 0333 366 0103. Tell us what got in, about how much, and also whether the engine has run. Those three facts shape the entire job.
Quarter past eight, a rushed top-up on the drive in, and it dawns on you around eleven — by which time your diesel Volkswagen Passat has been parked at Yeoford for three hours. Phone us then leave the car right where it stands. The drive in is the bit that counts now, as diesel has two tasks on its way through an engine: it burns, and before it ignites it protects the high-pressure pump and the injectors. Petrol handles the first and not the second. So those couple of miles were travelled with the pump labouring on a fluid that had given up most of the protection it is designed around — which is why the thing we ask is how far you drove, not how long the car has been standing.
Petrol in your Renault Clio, and it takes diesel? Shopping in your boot, you outside Morrisons, somewhere in Colebrooke? Then phone us, and leave the engine out of it — not even to exit the space. A technician gets to you. Tank drained, fuel lines flushed, clean diesel in, and home you go. Easy throttle over a mile pulls very little, and so these are often the easy jobs.
A diesel pump supplies fuel to demand, and a hurried morning dash asks for plenty — so three miles in your Peugeot 308 seems like nothing and is not. Twenty to nine by Yeoford Community Primary School, already late, a receipt in your hand saying unleaded: hazards on, engine off, phone us.
Your pump rests ahead of the fuel injectors, and so whatever a wearing one loses passes downstream with your fuel — which is why we're firm about not driving on. Call us, and leave your diesel BMW 1 Series where it's close to St Andrew's.
A throttle gone dead, white smoke, a lumpy idle, rattling: that is a misfuelled diesel Vauxhall Astra telling you what's wrong. Never restart the vehicle to find a better location — switch off where you have stopped, by Colebrooke House or anywhere else.
On a forecourt: clearing petrol from the diesel
Most of the work starts at a pump, meaning a large chunk of it is done on site. Our technicians work on station forecourts all the time, with the site's consent, and so if you are still at Shell that's generally where the drain happens.
The forecourt is the single setting this can be caught before the engine has run. Fuel pulled out of your tank and through the fuel filter, right to the high-pressure pump, is what happens when the motor is fired up and your car is moved to where it is now: the car park, the driveway or the lay-by, everywhere other than the forecourt. So the flush covers your filter and the lines together with the tank. That is still not a catastrophe, and we deal with it where the car is. What decides it is whether the key was reached for in the seconds after the receipt was checked.
Attendants will generally pitch in pushing it clear of the petrol pump, which lets the next motorist get by. Accept the assistance. Four car lengths isn't worth the risk.
Do our engineers reach your corner of Colebrooke?
Penstone, Coleford, Yeoford, Knowle, Copplestone — every one of these on the rounds that take us over to Colebrooke itself, a rural village.
There are dedicated pages for most locations across Devon, and the ones mentioned above are simply the nearest neighbours — so yours being absent from this list tells you nothing at all about whether we come. Presuming is the mistake to skip, above all on the boundary or anywhere the satnav struggles. Phone to enquire.
This map shows the patch the page spans. Every bit of that is ground we work: a kerbside, a forecourt, a driveway, a car park. You never bring the vehicle anywhere.
Stopped by the kerb somewhere in Colebrooke?
Not everyone gets a sensible place to pull in. A routine call for us rather than an odd one: realised after setting off, finished up along the verge beside Ford Hill or at a lay-by with the hazards on.
Clear of the motor when it's not sensible to sit inside, with it if it is. It will usually oblige. A diesel running on petrol limps along quite willingly, and that is the trouble: restart the car to get to somewhere safer and that blend goes further into the system with every mile driven. Pressing on does the vehicle far more harm than our van driving out to a tricky spot, and that is no problem for us.
A couple of miles on petrol in a diesel: now what?
under 15 miles from Colebrooke, the local M5 is what matters here. It will usually get you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it is smoke, a rough idle and power draining away — not a clean stop. Misfilled diesels seldom give you one of those.
Pull off at the first safe exit, turn off, and do not start the vehicle to move it. On a longer trip — anything near the under 15 miles to the nearest city — take it the mixture has been through your filter, the pump and the fuel injectors, and say so when you phone. It affects what our technicians bring.
Where is Colebrooke?
Colebrooke is a small village in inland Devon, situated approximately 10 miles west of Exeter and 115 metres above sea level. Colebrooke lies near the villages of Penstone, Coleford, and Yeoford, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Colebrooke remains a quiet rural community with a population of around 509 residents. Colebrooke is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 164.5 miles.
What happens when our technicians get to you in Colebrooke
- Three things get established before any quote — the fuel that was put in, the quantity, and if anything has been run since. Each answer alters the work.
- Out flows the contaminated fuel.
- We rinse your fuel lines and clear the filter, so what is remaining in your system isn't what caused the problem.
- The system gets bled, on clean diesel.
- Your engine is started and tested to confirm it runs smoothly on clean diesel.
That leaves it ready to pull away. We do all of this wherever the vehicle has come to a stop, which means it never needs to go to a workshop, and if it has been noticed early, it's very rare for there to be long-term damage.
A separate matter: AdBlue in a diesel tank around Colebrooke
If what got in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the first rule is unchanged — do not start it — but this fault is not. Petrol does two things to diesel: dilutes it, and takes away the protection the fuel system relies on. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Pour that in with the diesel and you get corrosion instead, plus build-up.
AdBlue removal in Colebrooke has a page of its own with the details on it, including why it is usually the more serious of the two. Our technicians deal with both.
How much is a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain in Colebrooke?
What changes the price is set out below, as this job isn't one job and we can't truthfully put a single figure on this page.
- Has it been run or driven? Nothing else counts for as much.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, set against how much your tank can hold.
- Whether it was petrol or AdBlue.
- Where is it? And can a technician get to it and work there safely?
Tell us what the vehicle is, how much went in, and if the engine has run. A firm answer comes back, not a range. If it isn't urgent — your car is at home and going nowhere — works too.
Petrol in diesel: common queries in Colebrooke
I am on a forecourt around Colebrooke. Can you drain the vehicle here?
Yes, and it's where a good share of this work takes place. Tell us which one you're at when you phone and we will tell you if we can work there. With the station's agreement we visit Fry's Garage and the other forecourts locally routinely.
A couple of litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
It rests on the proportion rather than the litres, and far more on whether the motor has run. What settles how much work is required is if that mixture has been drawn through your fuel system — because although five litres in an almost empty tank is a distinct matter from five in a full one, either way that's the question.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove it. What next?
Switch off somewhere sensible, and keep it that way after you stop. Not restarting it is the single most helpful thing available to you now. Driving does move the problem out of that tank then into the pump and injectors, yes, and it stays recoverable a lot more often than motorists expect.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
No. Carried out correctly, draining and cleaning is no change at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is untouched by it. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing likelier to cause an argument with one, which is another good reason to leave the car switched off.
Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home?
No. It belongs to a different fault from a different era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind restores. Your pump still has to put up with it, as that tank still has petrol in it later on.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — needed?
Wherever your car is, our technicians drain and clean it there, so a visit to the main dealer does not come into it.
Is the car still with you?
The engine stays off.
If you have already driven the vehicle, pull over somewhere sensible, turn it off then keep it off. Cold and parked, a car is in the best position available — and motorists fear this a lot more than the recovery rate warrants.
Mobile fuel draining in Colebrooke and throughout Devon — at the roadside, on the forecourt or at home.