Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Dunoon? Don't Start It
If you have not fired up your engine yet, do not. A fuel drain and nothing else is nearly always what a motor requires while the petrol is still inside your tank and the engine has not run, which is why it's the coming few minutes that count, not how much was put in. Petrol in Diesel goes to the vehicle wherever it has ended up in Dunoon or the remainder of Argyll and Bute, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway, and drains and cleans it there. One call our way is sufficient: our team will tell you what happens after this. Do that straight away.
What to try next about petrol in a diesel
- While you drive, the pump and the fuel injectors wear. That's why you do not fire it up, and why you don't believe it once it has started. The thing about petrol in a diesel in particular — the point drivers get wrong — is that it drives away fine for the first mile or two. Diesel in a petrol engine usually won't run at all, which stops the person and stops the damage with them. This one lets you keep going.
- Turning your ignition on usually primes that system, and priming is what moves petrol out of your tank and into the pump and injectors. Those are the parts diesel keeps oiled on its way through, before it combusts. Petrol does the burning and none of the oiling. Leave your ignition be.
- Never dilute it. Diesel added on top removes nothing, so all you have is more of what was already there, because percentage is not how a diesel fuel system accepts petrol. Super unleaded? Just petrol. The octane makes no difference.
- Stay put if it's wise to. Hazards on, motor off, keep the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Queen Street, anywhere — an awkward spot for us is better than a started engine, and nothing is quicker for us to handle than a motor that never moved.
- Find out where you are before ringing. A postcode that starts PA23 7, and the name of whatever is nearest to you. Otherwise the technician circles rather than arriving.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Let us know what was put in, roughly how much, plus whether the engine has fired. Those three answers settle your whole call-out.
On a forecourt: removing petrol from a diesel
Forecourts are where this job often starts, and where a fair portion of it ends. The drain normally takes place there and then. Still on the forecourt at Shell? Given the station's permission, that's a place our technicians work, and routinely.
Before your motor has started — a forecourt is the single place the mistake gets spotted. Our technicians can still deal with it where it is, even away from the pumps. In a car park, on a driveway or in a lay-by, the car has been fired up and driven there, and that drew fuel through your filter then into your high-pressure pump, right from that tank. None of that is a disaster, but the flush then has to go past your tank to your lines and your filter, and the few seconds between checking your receipt and going for the keys are what decide that.
Move the vehicle out of the way if the staff suggest it, and they normally will. The next driver gets through the pump, and that's worth doing. Moving it four lengths doesn't merit firing the motor.
Diesel Peugeot 308. A couple of litres of unleaded. Done a couple of miles. Shut off now, outside The Co-operative Food. That's the phone call we want, because the point beneath it is about volume through the pump not hours on the clock.
Here's what a job in the car park at The Lorne generally looks like. We arrive at the vehicle, ask what got in, about how much, and whether the engine has run since — these three answers decide most of the work. Then the polluted mixture comes out of that tank, the fuel lines get flushed, and the fuel filter comes off where your Audi A4 has a replaceable one. Fresh diesel goes in and the fuel system is bled. Then we fire it up, check it runs smoothly, and you set off.
Pull over somewhere sensible, switch off then ring us. Normal on the way out to Victoria Square, sluggish on the way back? Then look at your tank. Petrol weakens diesel; thinner fuel leaks past the precision parts that build injection pressure; and the farther the diesel Mercedes C-Class drove, the less of that pressure it held.
Off the forecourt, receipt read, a few hundred yards, left by Studio Cinema Dunoon. For a diesel Dacia Duster whose motor has turned, that's about the best version there is. Phone us, and let it stand with the ignition alone. Short assists, really — but a start is a start and a drive is a drive, and the fuel filter has had weakened fuel through it, and so has your pump. Which is why the fuel lines get flushed and not just that tank cleared.
Purged, not cleared — that's what a diesel Vauxhall Astra which got as far as Dunoon Burgh Hall needs. Running a diesel puts that mix into your filter, the fuel lines, your pump and its rail, none of which empties with your tank, and so by now your tank holds the smaller part of the trouble.
Dunoon plus the places near it
Being a coastal town, Dunoon has a frequent call, whilst its neighbours round about come along on the same round: Kirn and Hunters Quay, Bullwood and Ardnadam, Sandbank.
Not on this list? It means nothing. The places above are just the nearest few, and most places in Argyll and Bute have a page of their own somewhere on our site. Near a border, or anywhere the satnav gets wrong? Phone and ask rather than assuming.
That map marks the patch the page covers. Our technicians work roadside, on forecourts, on driveways and in car parks over all of it, and the car doesn't need to move to us.
Dunoon: stuck wherever you stopped
Not everyone gets the opportunity to pull over somewhere safe. If you worked it out after setting off and landed along the verge on McArthur Street, or at a lay-by somewhere with the hazard lights on, that's a routine call for us and not an unusual one.
Whether you remain with the motor or keep away from it rests on if being in it seems wise. Do not restart it to reach a better location. It'll go — a diesel on petrol usually obliges — and each mile of obliging drags that mixture deeper into the fuel system. However tricky the location, it's no trouble for us to get to it, and that's much better for your car than pressing on.
Run it already? Pull over, then check below
This is where the M8 comes into it — under 15 miles from Dunoon. A loss of power, an uneven idle, smoke: those are the symptoms when they arrive, rather than a tidy stop — and a misfilled diesel will usually get you onto it and some distance along before anything feels wrong at all.
The first safe exit is the one to take. Turn off there, and leave the restarting alone. On a longer drive — anything close to the under 50 miles to the nearest city — take it the petrol has been through the filter, your pump and the fuel injectors, and say so when you phone. It alters what our technicians bring.
About Dunoon
Dunoon is a coastal town in Argyll and Bute, situated on the Cowal Peninsula in western Scotland. Dunoon sits at a low elevation of around 13 metres, looking out across the Firth of Clyde towards the Isle of Bute. Dunoon is a popular residential area, with a high proportion of flat housing and a range of local amenities. Dunoon is located near the towns of Kirn and Hunters Quay, and is within commuting distance of Glasgow.
Once our technicians arrive with you in Dunoon: what happens
- The answers alter the work, which is why our engineers ask before giving a price: what was put in, how much of it, and whether your motor has run.
- The polluted mixture comes out of that tank.
- Lines cleaned, filter cleaned. Whatever remains after that is not the thing that caused the trouble.
- We pour fresh diesel in and bleed the system.
- It is run with clean diesel in it, and our engineers check that it's running properly.
The car is then ready for you to drive away. There is no need for a garage at any point, as the work is all done where the vehicle is, and when it is spotted soon, long-term damage is very unusual.
Dunoon AdBlue removal is a distinct matter
The problem isn't the same, though the opening step is — do not start it — if what got in was AdBlue instead of petrol. The protection a fuel system relies on gets taken away by petrol, which weakens the diesel. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Tip that in with the diesel and you get rust instead, plus residue.
Frequently the more significant of the two, AdBlue — and the full story lives on its own Dunoon page. Both are ours to deal with.
Dunoon pricing for a petrol-in-diesel drain
What changes the price is laid out below, since the job isn't one job and we can't truthfully put a single number on this page.
- Whether the motor has been run or driven. This is the big one.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, against how much that tank takes.
- The type of liquid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
- Where your vehicle is, and if our van can sensibly get to and work on it.
A firm answer instead of a range is what you get for telling us three things: your car, the quantity, and whether it has run. If it is not pressing — the vehicle is at home and going nowhere — works too.
Dunoon motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
I'm on a forecourt around Dunoon. Can you drain the vehicle on the spot?
A good share of this work gets done there, so yes. Regularly, provided the site consents: another forecourt nearby, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where precisely you have stopped. Whether our technicians can work in that spot is something our technicians answer on the spot.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Litres are not the yardstick. Ratio is, and much more than either, it matters whether anything has been run. What determines how much work is needed is if that mixture has been drawn through the system — since even though five litres in a nearly empty tank is a separate situation from five in a full one, either way that is the question.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. Now what?
Somewhere safe, then stop, then switch off and leave it off. It is salvageable a lot more frequently than motorists assume, even though driving is what shifts the problem from the tank into your pump and injectors — and the single most valuable thing you can do now isn't restart it.
Will a fuel drain void my warranty?
A manufacturer's warranty withstands a drain then flush done to a proper standard, which is no alteration at all. A disagreement over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it turned off.
Two-stroke oil in your tank, and then home?
No. It belongs to a different fault from a separate era, and petrol has weakened something no oil of that kind restores. Petrol stays in that tank later, whatever else goes in, and your pump gets no respite from it.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — essential?
Wherever the car is, our technicians drain and clean it there, so a drive to the main dealer doesn't come into it.
Is the vehicle still with you?
Don't turn the engine on again.
Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, switch off, and no restarting it later on. Cold, stationary, going nowhere: that's the best place to be in. People fear this far more than they need to.
Emptying wrongly fuelled motors, Dunoon and the rest of Argyll and Bute, wherever they are. Kerbside. Forecourt. Home.