Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Colliery Row? Don't Start It
If you have not started the engine as yet, don't. A fuel drain and nothing more is almost always what a motor requires while the fuel is still sitting in your tank and the motor has not yet turned over, which is why it is the following few minutes that matter, not how much went in. Petrol in Diesel comes to the car wherever it has come to rest in Colliery Row or the rest of Tyne and Wear, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a private drive, and drains and cleans it there. We shall explain what the following step will be. Contact us — it goes ahead of everything else.
Petrol in a diesel: what to do next
- Don't crank it — and never trust it when it starts. That is the bit most people get wrong about petrol in a diesel specifically. A petrol motor given diesel normally just will not run, and so the driver stops and the harm ends with them. A diesel filled with petrol typically starts, idles and pulls away perfectly well for several miles. It is not all right. It's eating into the fuel system while you drive.
- Two things, diesel: it burns, and on the way through it keeps the injection pump and injectors lubricated. Petrol only does the one. Which is why the car's ignition remains off as well — switch it on and you usually prime your system, and that's petrol leaving that tank for exactly those components.
- Don't add diesel on top to weaken it. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage in the way that guidance suggests, and topping up removes nothing — it just hands you a fuller tank of the same mixture. The type makes no difference either: super unleaded is just petrol.
- We would rather travel to an odd spot than have it started — so if you safely can, stay still. Nothing is quicker to handle than a motor that hasn't shifted. On the verge on Medway Close, that means hazards on then leave it.
- Get your whereabouts ready before you call. A postcode that starts DH4 6 and whatever is next to you with a label on it is the difference between our van arriving and a van circling.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Expect three points — what went in, about how many litres, plus whether the engine has been run. Those answers determine everything that happens next.
Draining petrol from a diesel on a forecourt
A good share of this work is finished at a forecourt, as that's where it usually kicks off. Still at Esso? Then that is usually where it takes place. Petrol station forecourts are routine for us, with the agreement of the site.
At a garage, it is stopped with your motor never run, and nowhere else does it. Our technicians can still sort it out where it sits, even away from the pumps. In a car park, on a private drive or in a lay-by, the vehicle has been switched on and moved there, and that sucked fuel through your filter then into the high-pressure pump, right from that tank. None of that is a disaster, though the flush then has to reach past that tank to the fuel lines and your filter, and the few seconds between checking your receipt and going for the keys are what determine that.
Away from the pump, the next customer can get through — so yes, let the staff help you move the vehicle. Worth doing. Firing it for four vehicle lengths? Never.
The call our engineers want goes like this: diesel BMW 3 Series, some litres of unleaded, run a couple of miles, now switched off outside Tesco. What we are really asking is how much fuel your pump has pulled — not how long ago it was.
How far, and how hard? The second of those matters more than the first, so have both prepared. The Peugeot 308 will have seemed completely normal on the way back from Dubmire Primary — they all do, and that is the snag. Diesel into a petrol motor mostly won't run at all: the person stops, and so does the wear. Petrol into a diesel fires up, ticks over, drives off like nothing happened, while your high-pressure pump gets on with its work minus the protection the fuel should be giving it. No warning appears, as behind the wheel nothing seems wrong.
Three things help when you phone from near St Andrew: which side the filler is on, whether a technician can stand beside without blocking the road, and whether the engine has run since you filled up. On-street is the commonest place we work, and so the place itself is hardly ever the problem — we'd much rather deal with a narrow parking spot than with a motor that has been driven to somewhere more convenient. We'll drain your Dacia Duster, change the filter where there is a workable one, flush the lines and put fresh fuel through the full circuit, because by this point the worst of that is sitting in your lines rather than in the tank.
Clattering, a ragged idle, white smoke, a throttle gone soft. That is a misfilled diesel Vauxhall Astra telling you what is wrong. Switch off where you have stopped, near Bank Head Church or anywhere else, and do not start the car to find a better place.
That sluggishness is your fuel failing to build pressure fully, not your engine giving up — and with no warning for it, vehicles in that position typically get driven once more before anyone phones. Please don't. A couple of streets is all it got: throttle gone dead, idle turned ragged, and a diesel Renault Captur now resting close to Rainton Meadows Arena. Switch the vehicle off then ring us.
Can we serve your end of Colliery Row?
Chilton Moor, Fence Houses, High Dubmire, Sedgeletch, Burnside — each of these on our trips that bring us out to Colliery Row as well, a small village.
There are separate pages for the majority of towns in Tyne and Wear, and the ones listed above are simply the immediate neighbours — so yours being left off that list says nothing whatsoever about whether we come. Call us to check instead of presuming — boundaries above all, and anywhere the satnav tends to get wrong.
The area the page spans appears on our map. The car never needs to move to us. We operate throughout the lot — roadside, forecourts, driveways, car parks.
Colliery Row: stuck where you stopped
Some people get no suitable place to pull in at all. If you worked it out after setting off and finished up on the verge of Syston Close, or at a lay-by somewhere with the hazard lights going, that's a normal call for us and not an unusual one.
Out of the motor when it is not sensible to sit in it, by it when it is. Never restart your engine to limp it somewhere safer — a diesel running on petrol will often oblige, and every mile it obliges for is drawing that blend further into the system. We will send the van to a tricky spot without any trouble, and for the car that is a lot better than carrying on.
A few miles on petrol in a diesel: what next?
under 3 miles from Colliery Row, your A1(M) is what counts here. Some distance along, and onto it in the first place: a wrongly fuelled diesel will usually manage both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is rarely a clean stop. Power falls away, the idle goes rough, and there may be smoke.
Take the first junction that's sensible, pull up there, and don't restart the vehicle to move it. It changes what we bring, so say so when you call: on a longer drive — anything near the under 10 miles to the nearest city — take it the contamination has been through the filter, the pump and the injectors.
Colliery Row itself
Colliery Row is a locality situated on the riverside in Tyne and Wear, with an elevation of 51 metres above sea level. Colliery Row lies near the city of Durham, approximately 5.5 miles away, and is close to other nearby places such as Chilton Moor and Fence Houses. Colliery Row has a population of around 2022 people and features predominantly terraced housing. Colliery Row is located in the North East region of England, about 237.1 miles north of London.
When we arrive with you in Colliery Row: what follows
- We ask first, quote after. What got in? How much? Has the motor run? Those responses alter what the work really is.
- Our technicians clear your tank of all the tainted fuel.
- Our engineers rinse the fuel lines and clear your filter, so what is remaining in your system isn't what caused the problem.
- The system gets bled, on clean diesel.
- We fire it up and check it runs correctly on clean diesel.
At that point it is ready to pull away. Our technicians do all of this wherever the car has ended up, which means it never has to be taken to a workshop, and when it has been noticed quickly, it's very unusual for there to be permanent damage.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Colliery Row is a distinct matter
Do not start it: that opening instruction applies whether what was put in was AdBlue or petrol. What differs is the fault itself. The protection a fuel system relies on gets stripped away by petrol, which thins your diesel. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Tip that in with your diesel and you get rust instead, plus build-up.
Frequently the more significant of the two, AdBlue — and the full story sits on its own Colliery Row page. Both are ours to deal with.
How much is a petrol-in-diesel drain around Colliery Row?
What changes the figure is laid out below, because the job is not one job and we can't truthfully put a single number on this page.
- This is the big one: whether the engine has been run, or driven.
- How much of the wrong fuel went in, against how much the tank takes.
- AdBlue or unleaded, whichever was put in.
- Where your vehicle is, and whether a van can safely reach and work on it.
A firm answer instead of a range is what you get for telling us three things: your vehicle, the amount, and whether it has run. Not urgent, with your car at home and going nowhere? Then works.
Colliery Row motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
I am on a forecourt in Colliery Row. Can you drain the car here?
Much of what our engineers do takes place nowhere else. So yes. Regularly, provided the site consents: JET, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where precisely you have stopped. Whether we can work in that location is something we answer straight away.
How much petrol is too much for a diesel?
Ratio decides it rather than litres — and more than either, whether your motor has run. Five litres into a nearly dry tank is not five into a full one, no. But both land on the same query in the end: has that mixture been pulled right through, or has it not?
I drove the vehicle after putting petrol in my diesel. What next?
Somewhere safe, then stop, then switch off and leave it off. Not restarting it is the single most useful thing available to you now. Driving does move the problem out of your tank and into your pump and injectors, yes, and it stays recoverable much more often than people assume.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
It is not an alteration, and so a drain then flush carried out properly doesn't cancel a manufacturer's warranty. What is likelier to start an argument is a diesel that has been run on petrol. One more reason for the motor to stay off.
Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old remedy for a different problem and it does not restore what petrol has diluted. Your pump still has to live with it, as your tank still has petrol in it after that.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
No. Our engineers drain and clean the vehicle wherever it is, so there is no need to take it to a franchised dealer.
Waiting next to it?
Keep the car shut off.
If you have already driven the car, pull in somewhere sensible, switch it off and leave it off. Cold, parked, going nowhere: that's the best position to be in. People fear this much more than they need to.
Emptying misfilled vehicles, Colliery Row and the rest of Tyne and Wear, wherever they are. Kerbside. Forecourt. Home.