Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Davidsons Mains? Don't Start It
Never start the motor. While the petrol is still in your tank and the engine has not yet run, a fuel drain is nearly always all it needs — and that gets decided in the following few minutes, not by how much got in. Petrol in Diesel drains and flushes wrongly fuelled cars where they are, throughout Davidsons Mains and the remainder of City of Edinburgh, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway. A single call to us is enough: our technicians can show you what happens after this. Try it right away.
What to do first about petrol in a diesel
- Feed a petrol engine diesel and it will normally refuse to run at all, so the person stops there and so does the wear. Give a diesel petrol and the thing starts, it idles, it pulls away — all right for a few miles. Drivers have that reversed, which is the thing they get wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. So don't fire it up. And once started, don't rely on it: the fuel system is wearing down whenever you drive.
- Diesel burns, and before it burns it greases — that high-pressure pump, its injectors. Petrol handles only the burning. So leave the ignition be too: turning it on is commonly sufficient to prime that system, and priming moves petrol from your tank into exactly those components.
- Do not dilute it. Diesel poured on top takes out nothing, and so all you have is more of what was already there, since percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol. Super unleaded? Still petrol. The grade makes no difference.
- Stay where you are if you safely can. A car that has not shifted is the easiest one to handle, and our team would sooner come to a difficult spot than have it started. If you are parked on the verge on Cramond Road South, put those hazards on then leave it there.
- Before you phone, get your whereabouts. Anything next to you with a sign on it, plus a postcode starting EH4 6 — that is what determines whether our van turns up or circles.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Tell us what went in, roughly how much, and if your car has started. Those three details decide the entire job.
Call us before you move it. Petrol into a diesel Volkswagen Passat this morning, and the car at South Gyle ever since? Then the afternoon has taken nothing from you: fuel in a tank is harmless, and any damage happened on the trip in, when the pump was pulling diesel that petrol had diluted.
Risk the journey home from Ye Olde Inn? No. It will fire up and it will move off quite happily, which is the problem — a diesel on a thinned tank behaves typically while wearing the parts your fuel should be protecting. Park the Nissan Qashqai and phone us.
Diesel has to be heavy enough to seal the tightly fitted parts it flows through, and petrol thins it. That is the whole process, and it accounts for the normal Forget me not garden call: a diesel Ford Focus that travelled out there without fuss and came back down on power, lumpy at idle, maybe smoking a little. A diesel injection system works hydraulically as well as chemically — it needs your fuel to hold pressure, not just to burn — so when your fuel dilutes, pressure that should build and stay built starts leaking past clearances instead, and the motor gets a poorer, later, less even delivery than it was designed around. No part of that is the motor failing, which is the part worth hearing: it's your fuel no longer acting like diesel, and it stops when your fuel is corrected.
Why we are direct about not driving on: your pump rests upstream of your injectors, so whatever a worn-out pump loses passes downstream with your fuel. Leave the Mercedes C-Class near Holy Cross Church then phone us.
No dashboard light exists for this, which is why motors in that position usually get driven a second time before somebody phones. Please don't be one of them. The throttle went soft and the idle turned uneven after a couple of streets, and your diesel Kia Sportage is now waiting by War Memorial. Softness there means fuel that cannot build pressure fully instead of a motor failing. Switch off. Phone us.
Removing petrol from your diesel at the forecourt
Forecourts are where the job often starts, and where a good chunk of that closes. We operate on petrol station forecourts all the time, with the station's permission, so if you're still at Sainsbury's that is normally where the drain takes place.
At a garage, the mistake is stopped with your motor never fired, and no place else manages that. Everywhere else — a car park, a drive, a lay-by — your car was switched on and driven to get there, which means fuel was drawn from your tank, through the fuel filter and into the high-pressure pump. That's not a catastrophe, and our technicians can still deal with it where it sits. It does mean the fuel lines and your filter need flushing as well as that tank, and that is settled by the few seconds between checking the receipt and going for the key.
The staff will usually help you push it out from the pump so the next motorist can get by. That is worth doing. Cranking the car just for four vehicle lengths? No.
Coverage near Davidsons Mains
Being a residential suburb, Davidsons Mains gets a regular visit, while its neighbours round about come along on that same journey: Silverknowes and Muirhouse, Clermiston and Blackhall, West Pilton.
If yours isn't on that list it doesn't mean we never come — there are dedicated pages for nearly all locations in City of Edinburgh, and the ones mentioned above are simply the immediate neighbours. Near a boundary, or anywhere the satnav misreads? Contact us to ask rather than presuming.
That map outlines the patch this page includes. We work by the road, at forecourts, on driveways and at car parks throughout all of it, and the car doesn't need to move to us.
Kerbside stops in Davidsons Mains
Not everybody gets a chance to stop anywhere sensible. Hazards on at a lay-by somewhere, or pulled onto the verge on Barnton Avenue since you worked it out after setting off — our engineers take that call regularly enough that it is the ordinary kind.
Fine right there? Stay by it. Not fine? Climb out and clear of it. Never start it up to get to a better location. It will go — a diesel on petrol normally obliges — and each mile of obliging draws that blend deeper into the fuel system. Pressing on causes the car far more harm than our van heading out to a tricky spot, and that is no bother for us.
Petrol in a diesel, and the motor has gone
under 5 miles from Davidsons Mains, the M8 is what matters now. A misfuelled diesel will usually get you onto it and some way along before anything seems wrong, and the symptoms when they appear are typically lost power, a rough idle and some smoke instead of a tidy stop.
Take the next exit that is safe, pull up there, and never start the vehicle to move it. It affects what we bring, and so tell us when you ring: on a longer trip — anything approaching the under 5 miles to the nearest city — take it the mixture has been through the filter, your pump and the fuel injectors.
A little about Davidsons Mains
Davidsons Mains is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 3.5 miles northwest of Edinburgh's city centre. Davidsons Mains lies close to the coast, with the Firth of Forth nearby, and has a relatively low elevation of around 57 metres. Davidsons Mains is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, with nearby neighbourhoods including Silverknowes, Muirhouse, and Clermiston.
What happens when our technicians arrive with you in Davidsons Mains
- Our technicians establish what went in, how much, and if the motor has run. The answers shape the work, which is why our technicians ask before quoting.
- The polluted fuel is drawn from your tank.
- We clean the lines and clear the fuel filter, and so what is left in the system is not what caused the issue.
- Bleeding your system follows, once clean diesel is in.
- It's run with new diesel in it, and we confirm that it is running properly.
Your car is then ready for you to pull away. There's no need to go to a garage at any stage, since the work is all done where the vehicle is, and when it's spotted soon, long-term damage is very rare.
AdBlue in the diesel tank instead, around Davidsons Mains?
If what got in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the first step is unchanged — do not start the car — yet the fault is not. The lubrication a fuel system relies on is stripped away by petrol, which weakens the diesel. AdBlue is urea in water, and in a diesel tank it leads to rust and residue instead.
Both are ours. There is a separate Davidsons Mains page for AdBlue removal, with the details on it — including the reasons it frequently turns out to be the worse of the two.
Davidsons Mains prices for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain
Frankly, no single number fits on a page like this. This job differs. Here's what moves it:
- This is the big one: whether the motor has been started, or driven.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel went into it.
- Whether it's unleaded or AdBlue.
- Access: the vehicle's position, and if working on it there's sensible for our van.
A straight answer instead of a range is what you get for telling us three things: your car, the amount, and whether it has run. Vehicle at home, going nowhere, nothing urgent about it — is ideal for that.
Things we hear about petrol in diesel around Davidsons Mains
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station around Davidsons Mains?
Yes — forecourts are where a good part of this gets done. Tell us which one you're at when you ring and we will tell you whether we can work there. With the owner's consent our engineers work at Esso and the other forecourts nearby regularly.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
It depends on the proportion rather than the litres, and much more on whether the engine has run. Five litres in a nearly empty tank is a different case from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that settles how much work is required is whether that mixture has been pulled through your fuel system.
I drove it after putting petrol in my diesel. What next?
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. It is recoverable a lot more commonly than motorists fear, even though driving is what takes the problem from that tank into your pump and injectors — and the single most valuable thing you can do now is not restart it.
Will a fuel drain void my warranty?
A drain then flush carried out properly is not a change and doesn't cancel a manufacturer's warranty. A dispute over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it switched off.
Two-stroke oil in the tank, and then home?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old fix for a different problem and it doesn't restore what petrol has thinned. Your pump still has to put up with it, since your tank still has petrol in it afterwards.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
Not at all. Our technicians drain and flush the car wherever it is, so there is no need to bring it to a franchised dealer.
You, and your vehicle, still together?
Never turn the engine on again.
Turn it off somewhere sensible and keep it off, if you have already driven it. A parked, cold motor is the best place to be in, and this is recoverable from far more often than people expect.
Call-out fuel draining in Davidsons Mains and across City of Edinburgh — at the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home.