Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Dover?
Don't start the motor. While the petrol is still inside your tank and the motor has not yet turned over, a tank drain is almost always all it needs — and that is determined in the coming few minutes, not by how much went in. Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans wrongly fuelled cars where they stand, throughout Dover and the rest of Kent, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a private drive. Our technicians will explain what your next stage will be. Ring us — that happens before anything else.
What to try next about petrol in a diesel
- Give a petrol engine diesel and it will usually not run at all, so the person stops there and so does the harm. Feed a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it idles, it drives off — fine for a couple of miles. People have that reversed, which is the thing they get wrong about petrol in a diesel specifically. So do not start the vehicle. And once started, do not depend on it: your fuel system is wearing down as you drive.
- Diesel combusts, and before it ignites it protects — that high-pressure fuel pump, its injectors. Petrol does only the burning. So leave the car's ignition be as well: switching it on is usually enough to prime the system, and priming pulls petrol from your tank into exactly those components.
- That advice assumes a diesel fuel system accepts petrol by percentage. It will not. Pour diesel on top and nothing at all is taken out; what you have is a bigger tank of the same mix. And no, the octane makes no difference — super unleaded is still petrol.
- We'd rather get to an odd location than have it started — so if you reasonably can, sit tight. Nothing is quicker to handle than a vehicle that has not shifted. On the verge on High Street, that means hazards on then keep the vehicle.
- Have your whereabouts prepared before you ring. A postcode that starts CT16 1 and whatever is nearest to you with a name on it is the difference between the van showing up and a van circling.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Tell us what was put in, roughly how much, and also if the engine has run. These three answers decide your whole job.
At a forecourt: removing petrol from a diesel
Most of the job begins at the pump, so a fair chunk of that is finished on site. If you're still at the forecourt at BP, that's normally where this drain gets done — our technicians work on station forecourts regularly, with the station's permission.
A forecourt is the only setting this gets spotted before the engine has started. The few seconds between checking your receipt and reaching for the key determine how much needs rinsing. Everywhere other than the forecourt — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the car was started and moved to get there, so fuel was pulled from that tank, through your filter and into your high-pressure pump. That means your lines and the fuel filter need rinsing as well as that tank. It is not a disaster, and our technicians can still sort it out where your car is.
Wheel the vehicle out of the way if the staff volunteer, and they generally will. The next customer gets past the petrol pump, and that is worth doing. Starting it just to move four vehicle lengths isn't.
Places we serve in Dover
Dover is a coastal town, so we head out to it and to the places near it on the same rounds: Victoria Park Mews, Clarendon, Tower Hamlets, Western Heights and St Radigunds.
If yours isn't on this list it does not mean we do not come — there are dedicated pages for most towns in Kent, and the ones listed above are just the closest neighbours. Assuming is the mistake to resist, particularly on the boundary or somewhere your phone goes wrong. Contact us to ask.
See this map for the ground included here. We operate at the roadside, at forecourts, on driveways and in car parks over all of it, and your car never needs to travel to us.
Shift it out of the gateway and sort it out later — that is what someone will say, and it's wrong. Parked on the zig-zags at St Richard's Catholic Primary School, a wrongly fuelled diesel BMW 3 Series is a hassle and nothing worse. Restarted three more times for good manners, it is no longer a tank problem but a fuel system one, because priming takes place with every start and more petrol goes past the fuel filter on to your pump. Let people grumble. Give us a call.
Your Nissan Qashqai remains where it is in the car park at Sir John Falstaff for the whole job, which typically goes like this. First we ask what got in, approximately how much, and whether your engine has run since, given that most of the work depends on those answers. That tank is emptied of the tainted mixture, the fuel lines are cleaned, and the filter comes off if it is a replaceable one. With fresh diesel in and the fuel system bled, the vehicle is started and checked, and once it's running smoothly you drive away.
Pull in somewhere safe, switch off and call us. Happy on the way out to Pencester Gardens, gutless on the way back? Then look at the tank. Petrol weakens diesel; thinner fuel seeps past the tightly fitted parts that build injection pressure; and the farther your diesel Audi A4 travelled, the less of that pressure it held.
Three things help when you ring from near The Maison Dieu: which side the filler is on, whether our van can park beside without blocking the road, and whether your engine has run since you filled up. On-street is the usual place our technicians work, and so the location itself is rarely the problem — we'd far rather deal with a narrow parking bay than with a motor that has been driven to somewhere more convenient. We'll drain the Ford Focus, change the fuel filter where there's a serviceable one, flush the fuel lines and put clean fuel through the whole circuit, since by this point the worst of it is resting in your lines instead of in that tank.
Switch off where you have stopped, and don't restart it to find somewhere better — near War Memorial or anywhere at all. Rattling, a ragged idle, white smoke and a dead throttle are a wrongly fuelled diesel Vauxhall Astra telling you what is wrong.
Stuck at the roadside somewhere around Dover?
Not everybody has a chance to stop somewhere sensible. Set off, then noticed? Finished up along the verge of Ladywell, or sat in some lay-by with the hazards going? That's a routine call here. Not an unusual one.
Clear of the motor if it is not safe to sit inside, with it when it is. Never restart it to get to a better spot. It'll go — a diesel on petrol normally obliges — and each mile of obliging draws the mixture deeper into the fuel system. We will take the van to an awkward place without any bother, and for the vehicle that's much better than carrying on.
Some miles on petrol in a diesel: what next?
Here is where your M20 comes in, under 10 miles away from Dover. A misfuelled diesel will frequently get you onto it and some distance along before anything seems wrong, while the symptoms when they arrive are usually a drop in power, a lumpy idle and smoke rather than a neat stop.
Take the first junction that is safe, pull up there, and never start it to move it. It affects what our technicians bring, so tell us when you call: on a longer trip — anything near the under 15 miles to the nearest city — take it the contamination has been through the filter, your pump and the injectors.
Dover itself
Dover is a coastal town in Kent, situated on the English Channel at an elevation of around 12 metres. Dover sits approximately 67 miles southeast of London and 14 miles southeast of Canterbury, with nearby residential areas including Victoria Park Mews and Clarendon. Dover has a mix of housing types, but terraced housing is predominant in the town. Dover is a significant urban centre in the region, with a population of around 23,196 people.
What we do when we get to you around Dover
- Our technicians ask first, quote after. What went in? How much? Has the engine run? Those responses alter what the work really is.
- We drain the tank of all the polluted mixture.
- Our engineers clean the lines and clear the fuel filter, so what is left in the system isn't what started the trouble.
- Priming follows, once fresh diesel is in.
- Your engine is started and tested to confirm it runs correctly on clean diesel.
That has your car ready to drive away. Our technicians do all of this wherever the vehicle has ended up, which means it never has to be taken to a garage, and if it has been noticed soon, it's very unusual for there to be permanent damage.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Dover is a different problem
Don't start it: that first rule holds whether what got in was AdBlue or petrol. What differs is the problem itself. The protection a fuel system depends on gets taken away by petrol, which dilutes your diesel. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water, and in a diesel tank it leads to corrosion and build-up in its place.
Both are ours. There is a separate Dover page for AdBlue removal, with the detail on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
Dover costs for a petrol-in-diesel drain
What shifts the price is set out below, since the job is not one job and our technicians cannot frankly put a single figure on this page.
- Whether your engine has been started or driven. This is the main one.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, against how much that tank holds.
- The sort of liquid in the tank, unleaded or AdBlue.
- Whether a van can sensibly reach your vehicle and work on it, which rests on where your vehicle is.
The car, the amount, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back straight rather than as a range. Not time-critical, with the car at home and going nowhere? Then is fine.
Things we get about petrol in diesel around Dover
Fuel drains on a Dover petrol station forecourt
Plenty of what our technicians do gets done nowhere else. So yes. Our engineers work at Shell and the other forecourts nearby regularly, with the owner's agreement — tell us which one you're at when you call and we'll tell you whether our engineers can work there.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Litres aren't the measure. Ratio is, and far more than either, it counts if anything has been run. What determines how much work is needed is if that mix has been pulled through the fuel system — because though five litres in a nearly empty tank is a separate situation from five in a full one, either way that's the question.
Already driven it with petrol in the diesel? What then?
Somewhere safe, then stop, then turn off and keep it off. Driving shifts the problem along — out of the tank, into your pump and injectors. People fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one genuinely helpful thing left to you is not restarting the vehicle.
Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties
It's not a change, so a drain and flush carried out properly doesn't invalidate a manufacturer's warranty. A dispute over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it turned 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 workaround for a distinct fault. So no. Petrol remains in that tank later, whatever else goes in, and the pump gets no respite from it.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — essential?
There's no need to bring it to a franchised dealer, because we drain and flush the car wherever it is.
Waiting next to it?
Keep the engine turned off.
Switch it off somewhere safe and leave it off, if you have already driven it. Cold, still, going nowhere: that's the best position to be in. Drivers fear this a lot more than they need to.
At the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home — on-site fuel draining around Dover and throughout Kent.