Diddywell: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
If you have not fired up your engine as yet, do not. A fuel drain and nothing more is almost always what a vehicle needs while the petrol is still in that tank and the motor has not yet turned over, which is why it's the next few minutes that matter, not how much went in. Petrol in Diesel travels to the car wherever it has ended up in Diddywell or the remainder of Devon, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a private drive, and drains and cleans it there. Phone before everything else starts, so you'll know what follows after that.
What to try next about petrol in a diesel
- As you drive, the pump and your injectors wear down. This is why you don't fire it up, and why you don't believe it once it has started. The catch about petrol in a diesel especially — the bit motorists get wrong — is that it drives away fine for the first mile or two. Diesel in a petrol engine normally will not run at all, which stops the driver and stops the wear with them. This one lets you carry on.
- Two jobs, diesel: it ignites, and on the way through it keeps your injection pump and injectors lubricated. Petrol only does the one. Which is why your ignition remains off as well — flick it on and you frequently prime the system, and that is petrol leaving the tank for precisely those components.
- That advice presumes a diesel fuel system copes with petrol by percentage. It doesn't. Tip diesel on top and nothing at all is removed; what you have is a larger tank of the same mix. And no, the type makes no difference — super unleaded is just petrol.
- We would much rather drive to a difficult location than have it started — so if you safely can, sit tight. Nothing is easier to handle than a motor that hasn't shifted. On the verge on Diddywell Close, that means hazards on and leave the vehicle.
- Before you phone, work out your location. Anything next to you with a label on it, plus a postcode that starts EX39 1 — that is what decides whether the van shows up or circles.
- Ring 0333 366 0103. Tell us what got in, about how much, plus if the motor has started. These three details shape the entire call-out.
Draining petrol from the diesel on the forecourt
The work begins at the pump, usually. Regularly it finishes there as well. We operate on petrol station forecourts regularly, with the site's agreement, and so if you are still at Morrisons that is normally where this drain happens.
The forecourt is the single spot it is stopped before the engine has started. Our engineers can still deal with it where it is, even away from the pumps. In a car park, on a private drive or in a lay-by, the vehicle has been fired up and driven there, and that drew fuel through the fuel filter and into your high-pressure pump, all the way from your tank. None of that is a disaster, although the flush then has to reach past your tank to the fuel lines and the fuel filter, and the few seconds between seeing your receipt and going for your key are what determine that.
Clear of the petrol pump, the next customer can get by — so yes, let the staff help you move the vehicle. Well worth it. Cranking the car just to shift four car lengths isn't.
Diddywell and the villages next to it
Diddywell is a residential suburb, and so our technicians are out to it and to anywhere around it on those same trips: Northam, Appledore, Instow, Westleigh and Silford.
If yours isn't on this list it does not mean we don't come — there are pages for nearly all towns across Devon, and the ones mentioned above are merely the nearest neighbours. Close to the boundary, or somewhere your phone gets wrong? Contact us to ask instead of assuming.
Check our map for the ground shown on this page. The vehicle does not need to travel to us. We work throughout every bit of it — roadside, forecourts, driveways, car parks.
How far, and how hard? The second of those counts more than the first, and so have both prepared. The BMW 3 Series will have seemed completely normal on the way back from Appledore School — they all do, and that is the catch. Diesel into a petrol car usually won't run at all: the person stops, and so does the damage. Petrol into a diesel starts, idles, moves off like nothing happened, while the high-pressure fuel pump gets on with its work minus the protection your fuel should be giving it. No warning arrives, as behind the wheel nothing looks wrong.
The parts that should be getting oiled are wearing down instead, and the vehicle gives no sign of that: a diesel on a weakened tank starts and drives off just fine. Chance the journey home from Golden Lion? Don't. Ring us then leave the Nissan Qashqai where it stands.
Hardly ever the problem, the spot. On-street is the commonest place we work, and a cramped parking bay is far preferable to a car that has been driven somewhere more handy. What does help, when you ring from close to Battle of Northam, is three things: the side the filler is on, whether a van can pull up beside without blocking the road, and whether anything has run since you filled up. Then your Mercedes E-Class gets drained, your filter changed where a workable one exists, your lines rinsed and fresh fuel put through the whole system — since by now the worst of it is in your lines, not your tank.
Clattering? Lumpy idle? White smoke, throttle gone soft? That is your misfuelled Peugeot 208, a diesel, saying what's wrong with it. Stop wherever you happen to be, maybe near Marshford, and leave the restarting alone.
What occurs next is the problem. The engine straight away pulls the petrol left waiting in your filter and the feed lines back round through your pump a second time, because draining a tank does nothing about fuel that has already left it. Drain it then put fresh diesel in, a person sure of themselves will tell you — and that advice is half true, because do it to a diesel Citroen C3 parked up, Bloody Corner say, and the thing starts, which is what makes it sound plausible. Ring us instead. Our technicians flush your circuit and take the filter off where the car has a workable one, and that's the difference between the vehicle being fixed and your car merely starting.
Kerbside breakdowns around Diddywell
The chance to pull over somewhere suitable doesn't fall to everybody. Hazards going at a lay-by somewhere, or stopped on the verge on Primrose Lane as you noticed after setting off — we take that call regularly enough that it is the usual kind.
Whether you sit beside the car or move away from it rests on whether staying nearby seems safe. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol pulls that mix further into the fuel system — and oblige it usually will, which is why the motor does not get restarted to limp somewhere handier. However awkward the place, it's no bother for us to come to it, and that is a lot better for your car than carrying on.
Driven it already? Stop, then see below
under 50 miles from Diddywell, your M5 is what matters here. A misfuelled diesel will often take you onto it and some way along before anything seems wrong, and the symptoms when they appear are typically a drop in power, a rough idle and some smoke instead of a tidy stop.
Take the next junction that is safe, stop there, and never restart the vehicle to move it. It changes what our technicians bring, so say so when you call: on a longer trip — anything near the under 50 miles to the nearest city — take it the contamination has been through your filter, your pump and the injectors.
Where is Diddywell?
Diddywell is a small suburban area in Devon, situated near the coast and close to the nearby places of Northam, Appledore, and Instow. Diddywell has a population of around 1189 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Diddywell sits at an elevation of 21 metres, looking out over the surrounding coastal landscape. Diddywell is located approximately 36.9 miles from Exeter, the nearest city.
What our engineers do when our engineers arrive with you around Diddywell
- The answers change the work, which is why our technicians ask before giving a price: what was put in, how much of it, and if the motor has run.
- The tank is drained completely.
- Fuel lines are purged through and the fuel filter cleared, leaving nothing in the system that started any of this.
- Priming follows, once clean diesel is in.
- After it's turned on, our technicians check it runs smoothly on new diesel.
Your car is then ready for you to drive away. Long-term damage is very unusual when it has been spotted quickly, and because everything is done where the vehicle is, it never has to go to a garage.
AdBlue in the diesel tank instead, in Diddywell?
Do not start it: that first instruction applies whether what went in was AdBlue or petrol. What changes is this problem itself. Petrol weakens your diesel and strips the lubrication the fuel system depends on. Rust and deposits are what a diesel tank ends up with instead, as AdBlue is urea in water.
Usually the more significant of the two, AdBlue — and the details sits on its own Diddywell page. Both are ours to deal with.
How much is a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain in Diddywell?
One figure wouldn't be honest here, as this is not one job. These are the things that change it:
- Has it been run or driven? Nothing else matters for as much.
- Wrong fuel in, against what that tank holds — that proportion.
- Which got in: unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where the car is, and whether a van can safely reach and work on it.
Tell us the vehicle, the quantity and if it has run, and you'll get a straight answer rather than a range. Car at home, going nowhere, nothing time-critical about it — is good for that.
Petrol in diesel: frequent queries in Diddywell
Fuel drains on a Diddywell petrol station forecourt
Yes — forecourts are where a good portion of this happens. Tell us which one you are at when you phone and we will tell you if our engineers can work there. With the station's permission our engineers visit Texaco and the other forecourts around town regularly.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Whether your engine has run matters far more, though the ratio counts too, rather than the litres. Five litres in a nearly empty tank is a different matter from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that decides how much work is required is if that mix has been sucked through the fuel system.
Already driven it with petrol in the diesel? What now?
Somewhere safe, then stop, then switch off and keep it off. It is fixable a lot more regularly than drivers assume, even though driving is what shifts the issue from that tank into your pump and injectors — and the single most valuable thing you can do now isn't restart it.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
A manufacturer's warranty outlasts a drain and flush done to a good standard, which is no change at all. A dispute over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it switched off.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
What petrol has diluted is not replaced by two-stroke oil, which is an old remedy for a distinct fault. So no. Later on? Still petrol in your tank, and a pump that has to live with the stuff.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — essential?
No. We drain and clean the car wherever it is, so there's no need to take it to a dealership.
Is your car still with you?
Never turn the engine back on.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, switch off, and no restarting the car later on. This is recoverable from far more regularly than drivers assume, and a stationary, cold vehicle is the best place to be in.
At the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining in Diddywell and across Devon.