Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Comiston?
Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans wrongly fuelled cars where they stand, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a drive, throughout Comiston and the remainder of City of Edinburgh. The first thing to do is not to start the motor. While the engine has not yet been started and the fuel is still sitting in the tank, a drain is almost always all it takes, and the coming few minutes settle that, not how much got in. Just one call our way is enough: our technicians will explain what follows from here. Do this first.
What to try next about petrol in a diesel
- Whenever you drive, your pump and the fuel injectors suffer. That's why you never crank it, and why you never rely on it once it has started. The trick about petrol in a diesel in particular — the point people get wrong — is that it pulls away normally for the first mile or two. Diesel in a petrol motor usually won't run at all, which stops the motorist and stops the damage with them. This one lets you keep going.
- Diesel ignites, and before it ignites it lubricates — the high-pressure pump, its injectors. Petrol manages only the burning. So leave the ignition be too: flicking it on is commonly all it takes to prime your system, and priming draws petrol from the tank into exactly those parts.
- That advice presumes a diesel fuel system accepts petrol by percentage. It won't. Pour diesel on top and nothing at all is cleared; what you have is a bigger tank of the same mixture. And no, the grade makes no difference — super unleaded is just petrol.
- We'd much rather travel to an odd location than have it started — so if you sensibly can, stay put. Nothing is quicker to sort out than a motor that hasn't shifted. On the verge on Fairmile Avenue, that means hazards on and leave the vehicle.
- Find out where you are before ringing. A postcode that starts EH10 6, and the name of whatever is nearest to you. Otherwise the van circles instead of arriving.
- Phone 0333 366 0103. Tell us what got in, roughly how much, plus whether your car has fired. These three answers settle the entire call-out.
At a forecourt: removing petrol from your diesel
A large share of the work ends up finished at a pump, since that's where it often kicks off. Still at Esso? Then that is typically where it happens. Petrol station forecourts are everyday for us, with the consent of the owner.
Nowhere else other than the forecourt can this be stopped with the motor still unrun. We can still put it right where it stands, even away from the forecourt. 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 and into the high-pressure fuel pump, right from the tank. None of that is a disaster, but the flush then has to go past the tank to the lines and the fuel filter, and the few seconds between checking your receipt and going for the key are what decide that.
Push it out of the way if the staff offer, and they usually will. The next motorist gets past the petrol pump, and that is worth doing. Moving the car four bays does not justify cranking it.
How much fuel the pump has sucked is what we are really asking — not how long ago any of that was. So the phone call our technicians want goes like this: diesel Peugeot 308, a couple of litres of unleaded, a couple of miles driven, now shut off outside Morrisons.
Here's what a job in the car park outside Hunter's Tryst normally looks like. Our engineers arrive at your car, ask what went in, about how much, and whether the motor has run since — those three answers decide most of the work. Then the contaminated blend comes out of that tank, the fuel lines get cleaned, and the filter comes off where your Dacia Duster has a replaceable one. Fresh diesel goes in and the system is primed. Then our engineers fire it up, make sure it runs properly, and you set off.
Here is the whole mechanism. Diesel needs enough body to seal the fine clearances it goes through, and petrol takes that away. That's it. Which explains the usual Bellrock Park call — a diesel Vauxhall Astra, out there without a murmur and back down on power, rough at idle, maybe a bit of smoke. Injection systems work hydraulically as well as chemically, and so your fuel has to hold pressure and not just burn; thinned, it leaks past those gaps instead of building, and delivery comes weaker, later, less even than your engine was built about. Not a failing engine, though. Fuel that has stopped behaving like diesel. Put that right and it stops.
Pulled off the forecourt, read the till receipt, and left your diesel Ford Kuga up close to Fairmilehead Parish Church a few hundred yards later? That's about as well as this goes once the motor has turned. Call us then leave the car off. The short distance really assists, but it was still a start and a drive, and so thinned fuel has reached the filter and your pump — which is why our engineers purge the fuel lines rather than only draining that tank.
Rattling? Ragged idle? White smoke, throttle gone dead? That is your wrongly fuelled Mercedes A-Class, a diesel, saying what's wrong with it. Stop wherever you happen to be, perhaps near Caiy Stane, then leave the restarting alone.
Will our technicians reach your side of Comiston?
Fairmilehead, Lothianburn, Swanston, Oxgangs, Greenbank — all of these on the runs that bring us out to Comiston as well, a residential suburb.
There are separate pages for most locations around City of Edinburgh, and the ones mentioned above are simply the nearest neighbours — so yours being missing from that list means nothing at all about whether we come. Contact us to ask instead of guessing — county lines particularly, and wherever your phone tends to get wrong.
This map marks the patch this page covers. Kerbside, forecourt, drive, car park: every bit of it is ground our technicians cover, and none of it requires your car to move to us.
Stranded on the roadside somewhere in Comiston?
Not everybody has a chance to pull in anywhere safe. Hazards on in a lay-by somewhere, or pulled onto the verge on Caiystane Avenue because you realised after setting off — we take that call regularly enough that it is the ordinary kind.
Out of the car while it isn't wise to be inside, beside it if it is. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol drags the mixture further into the fuel system — and oblige it often will, which is why your engine doesn't get restarted to limp somewhere handier. A technician heading to a tricky spot is no problem for us, and it's far better for the car than pressing on.
So you've driven it? Petrol in a diesel over some miles
The M8 is the road that matters here, and it sits under 5 miles from Comiston. It will often get you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it's some smoke, an uneven idle and power ebbing away — not a tidy stop. Misfuelled diesels seldom give you one of those.
Take the first junction that is safe, stop there, and do not start the car to move it. Long run? Anything near the under 5 miles to the nearest city and you should suppose the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of that arrived at by the mixture. Say that on the call, because it alters what goes in the van.
A little about Comiston
Comiston is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated near the River Almond and overlooking the surrounding countryside. Comiston sits at an elevation of 182 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Comiston is located close to several nearby places, including Fairmilehead, Lothianburn, and Swanston, and is approximately 3.6 miles from Edinburgh city centre.
What happens when we reach you in Comiston
- The replies change the work, which is why we ask before pricing: what was put in, how much of it, and if the motor has run.
- Your tank is drained of it.
- Lines flushed, filter cleaned. Whatever remains after that is not the thing that started the issue.
- Clean diesel goes in, and then the system gets primed.
- Our engineers turn it on and check it runs correctly on clean diesel.
From that point, you're ready to pull away. Permanent damage is very rare when it has been noticed quickly, and as everything is done where the car is, it never has to go to a garage.
AdBlue in your diesel tank by mistake, in Comiston?
Never crank it: that first rule applies whether what got in was AdBlue or petrol. What differs is this problem itself. Petrol does two things to diesel: thins it, and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Urea dissolved in water, AdBlue, and in a diesel tank that leads to rust and residue.
Both are ours. There is a separate Comiston page for AdBlue removal, with the details on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
Paying for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain around Comiston
Frankly, no single figure belongs on a page like this. The job differs. Here's what moves it:
- Has it been started or driven? Nothing else matters for as much.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel got into it.
- Which went in: petrol or AdBlue.
- Where the car is, and if a van can safely reach and work on it.
The vehicle, the amount, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back firm and not as a range. For the vehicle at home that's going nowhere and is not pressing, works too.
Comiston drivers ask us these about petrol in diesel
I am on a forecourt around Comiston. Can you drain the vehicle on the spot?
A large part of this work gets done there, so yes. Tell us which one you're at when you phone and we will tell you if our technicians can work there. With the site's permission our technicians attend Shell and the other forecourts nearby routinely.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Whether the engine has run matters much more, though the proportion counts too, instead of the litres. What determines how much work is needed is if that blend has been drawn through the system — because although five litres in a nearly empty tank is a different case from five in a full one, either way that's the query.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove it. What now?
Somewhere safe, then stop, then turn off and keep it off. Driving is what shifts the issue from that tank into your pump and injectors — but it is salvageable a lot more frequently than people expect, and the single most helpful thing you can do now isn't restart it.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
No. Carried out correctly, draining and purging is no alteration at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is unaffected by it. Another good reason to leave it turned off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a dispute with one.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. Two-stroke oil is an old remedy for a different fault and it does not replace what petrol has thinned. After that? Still petrol in the tank, and a pump that has to put up with the stuff.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
Wherever your car is, our engineers drain and clean it there, so a visit to the main dealer doesn't come into it.
You, and your vehicle, still together?
The engine stays off.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, switch off, and no restarting the vehicle after that. This is recoverable from a lot more often than drivers assume, and a still, cold vehicle is the best place to be in.
At the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining around Comiston and throughout City of Edinburgh.