East Craigs: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
If you have not started your engine as yet, do not. A drain and nothing more is nearly always what a motor needs while the fuel is still sitting in that tank and the motor has not run, which is why it's the next few minutes that count, not how much got in. Petrol in Diesel comes to the car wherever it has stopped in East Craigs or the remainder of City of Edinburgh, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a driveway, and drains and flushes it there. A single ring to us is sufficient: we can tell you what comes after this. Try this right away.
Petrol in a diesel: what to try first
- Do not start it — and don't believe it if it fires up. Here is the part motorists get wrong about petrol in a diesel specifically. A petrol engine given diesel typically just cannot run, and so the person stops and the damage halts with them. A diesel given petrol generally starts, idles and pulls away quite happily for several miles. It isn't fine. It's eating into your fuel system as you drive.
- Two things, diesel: it combusts, and on the way through it keeps the high-pressure fuel pump and injectors greased. Petrol only handles the one. Which is why the car's ignition is left off as well — flick it on and you usually prime your system, and that's petrol exiting your tank for exactly those parts.
- That guidance assumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not. Add diesel on top and nothing at all is cleared; what you end with is a fuller tank of the same mix. And no, the type makes no difference — super unleaded is simply petrol.
- A motor that hasn't moved is the simplest one to deal with, so stay where you are if you reasonably can. Parked on the verge on Craigievar Wynd? Hazards on, and keep it there. A difficult location suits us better than a started diesel.
- Get your position prepared before you dial. A postcode starting EH12 8 and whatever is nearest to you with a sign on it is the difference between the van showing up and our van circling.
- Call 0333 366 0103. Tell us what went in, roughly how much, and whether the motor has started. These three replies settle the whole visit.
Forecourt draining for petrol in a diesel
A fair portion of this work ends up completed at a pump, since that is where it mostly starts. Still at Shell? Then that is normally where it happens. Garage forecourts are everyday for us, with the permission of the owner.
At a garage, this is halted with your engine never started, and nowhere else does that. Fuel drawn out of that tank and through the filter, right to the high-pressure pump, is what occurs when your engine is switched on and your car is driven to where it is now: the car park, the private drive or the lay-by, everywhere other than the forecourt. So the flush covers your filter and the lines as well as the tank. That's still not a calamity, and our technicians put it right where your car sits. What settles it is whether the key was reached for in the seconds after the receipt was checked.
Move it out of the way if the attendants suggest it, and they generally will. The next driver gets through the pump, and that is worth doing. Four vehicle lengths is not worth a restart.
Diesel Renault Megane. A couple of litres of unleaded. Run a couple of miles. Turned off now, at Scotmid. That's the call we hope for, since the real question under it is about amount through the pump instead of hours on the clock.
Your diesel Skoda Octavia will have felt entirely usual on the way back from the local primary school. They always do, and that's the trap with petrol in a diesel rather than the other way round. Put diesel in a petrol motor and it generally won't run, so the driver stops and the wear stops with them. Put petrol in a diesel and it starts, idles and moves off as though nothing has happened — all the while the high-pressure pump does its work without the lubrication your fuel is supposed to be providing. Nothing alerts you, as from the driver's seat there's nothing to alert you about. Ring us with approximately how far you travelled and how hard you worked it; the second answer counts more than the first.
It will start. It will pull away perfectly well. That is the problem, because a diesel on a thinned tank runs normally while grinding the components its fuel should be lubricating. So no, don't risk the drive home from Mid Yoken Pub — leave the Peugeot 308 and phone.
Pull over somewhere sensible, switch off then phone us. Normal on the way out to Rowallan Court, sluggish on the way back? Then look at your tank. Petrol dilutes diesel; weaker fuel seeps past the tightly fitted parts that build injection pressure; and the further your diesel Audi A4 travelled, the less of that pressure it held.
Why we're blunt about not driving on: the pump sits upstream of your injectors, and so whatever a worn pump sheds moves onward with your fuel. Leave the Dacia Duster by East Craigs Church Centre then phone us.
Places our vans serve in East Craigs
Being a residential suburb, East Craigs has a steady call, and the places nearby come along on the same run: The Gyle and Bughtlin, West Craigs and Drumbrae, South Gyle.
Not on that list? That means nothing. The places above are only the nearest few, and most places around City of Edinburgh have a page of their own elsewhere on our site. Contact us to ask rather than presuming — borders particularly, and anywhere your phone can get wrong.
The area this page covers appears on this map. The vehicle never needs to come to us. We operate throughout all of that — roadside, forecourts, driveways, car parks.
Kerbside call-outs around East Craigs
The chance to pull over somewhere safe does not come to everyone. Set off, then realised? Ended up by the verge of East Craigs Wynd, or stuck in some lay-by with the hazards going? That is a common call here. Not an unusual one.
Okay where you are? Stay by it. Not okay? Climb out and away from it. Do not restart the engine to limp the vehicle somewhere handier — a diesel running on petrol will often oblige, and every mile it obliges for is drawing that mixture further into your fuel system. However awkward the location, it is no problem for us to get to it, and that's much better for the vehicle than driving on.
Already run it? Petrol in a diesel over a couple of miles
This is where the M8 comes into it — under 3 miles from East Craigs. It will frequently take you onto it, and some way along, before you feel a thing. Then it's some smoke, an uneven idle and power ebbing away — not a tidy stop. Misfuelled diesels rarely give you one of those.
The next safe junction is the one to take. Switch off there, then leave the restarting alone. It alters what our engineers bring, so say so when you phone: on a longer drive — anything near the under 5 miles to the closest city — take it the mixture has been through the fuel filter, your pump and the fuel injectors.
East Craigs itself
East Craigs is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 4.6 miles west of Edinburgh's city centre. East Craigs is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and relatively low elevation of 61 metres above sea level. East Craigs is close to nearby places such as The Gyle, Bughtlin, and West Craigs, and is part of the wider Edinburgh urban area. East Craigs has a population of around 6041 residents.
Our visit around East Craigs, step by step
- We ask first, price after. What got in? How much? Has the motor run? Those answers alter what the work actually is.
- The tank is cleared of it.
- What is remaining in the fuel system shouldn't be what started the trouble, and so your fuel lines get flushed and the filter cleared.
- The system gets bled, on new diesel.
- Once it is fired up, our engineers make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel.
That leaves the car ready to pull away. Our technicians do all of this wherever the car has ended up, which means it never has to go to a workshop, and if it has been noticed soon, it's very uncommon for there to be lasting damage.
East Craigs AdBlue removal is a different problem
Never start it: that opening step stands whether what went in was AdBlue or petrol. What differs is this problem itself. Weakened diesel, and no protection left for your fuel system that depends on it. That's petrol. Rust and deposits are what a diesel tank gets instead, because AdBlue is urea in water.
Both are ours. There's a separate East Craigs page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
Budgeting for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain in East Craigs
What shifts the figure is set out below, as this job isn't one job and we can't frankly put a single price on this page.
- Whether your motor has been run or driven. This is the main one.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, judged against how much your tank can hold.
- The sort of liquid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
- Access: the vehicle's position, and if working on it there's safe for a technician.
Tell us your car, the quantity and whether it has run, and you will get a clear answer rather than a range. Not time-critical, with the car at home and going nowhere? Then is fine.
Questions our technicians hear about petrol in diesel in East Craigs
Fuel drains on a East Craigs petrol station forecourt
A big portion of this work happens there, so yes. Consent from the site is the condition. Given that, a forecourt like Tesco is somewhere we're regularly, along with the rest of them locally — so name yours on the call and you will hear if working there is possible.
How much petrol is too much for a diesel?
Litres aren't the yardstick. Proportion is, and far more than either, it matters whether anything has been run. A nearly empty tank with five litres in it, against a full one with the same five: different situations, of course. Either way, the work required comes down to one thing, which is if your fuel system has had that mix pulled through it.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the car. Now what?
Turn off somewhere safe, then keep it that way after you stop. It's salvageable far more commonly than people fear, even though driving is what moves the trouble from the tank into the pump and injectors — and the single most helpful 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 then flush done to a good standard, which is no change at all. Another reason to leave it switched off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing likelier to cause a disagreement with one.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old workaround for a separate fault and it does not put back what petrol has diluted. Your tank still has petrol in it afterwards, and your pump still has to put up with it.
Do I need a main dealer for petrol in a diesel?
Not at all. Our engineers drain and clean your car wherever it is, so there is no need to take it to a franchised dealer.
Waiting next to it?
Do not switch the engine back on.
Already driven it? Then stop somewhere safe, switch off, then let the car remain that way. This is recoverable from a lot more frequently than motorists assume, and a parked, cold car is the best position to be in.
On-site fuel draining around East Craigs and across City of Edinburgh — at the roadside, on the forecourt or at home.