Egerton: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With your tank still carrying the fuel and the engine not yet started, nearly every job needs only a drain, so keep the engine off. That outcome is determined in the minutes straight after the fill-up, and not by the amount that got in. All over Egerton and the remainder of Kent, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and flushes it where it sits, whether by a roadside, on a drive or at a forecourt. One ring to us is enough: our technicians can explain what follows next. Do this straight away.
Your next five steps: petrol in a diesel
- Give a petrol engine diesel and it will generally not run at all, and so the driver stops there and so does the harm. Give a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it idles, it moves off — fine enough for a few miles. People have that reversed, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel specifically. So never fire it up. And once started, don't believe it: that fuel system is wearing whenever you drive.
- Diesel burns, and before it ignites it protects — that injection pump, the injectors. Petrol does only the burning. So leave your ignition be also: flicking it on is often sufficient to prime that system, and priming carries petrol from the tank into just those parts.
- Don't weaken it. Diesel added on top takes out nothing, so all you get is more of what was already there, since percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system handles petrol. Super unleaded? Still petrol. The type makes no difference.
- Stay put if it is wise to. Hazards on, engine off, keep the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Rock Hill Road, anywhere — a difficult spot for us beats a started diesel, and nothing is simpler for us to sort out than a motor that never moved.
- Keep your location prepared before you dial. A postcode starting TN27 9 and whatever is next to you with a name on it is the difference between the van arriving and our van circling.
- Three answers determine the whole call-out: the liquid you put in, the rough amount involved, and if anything has been running since. Our number is 0333 366 0103.
Quarter past eight. A rushed refuel on the way in. At about eleven it hits you, and by then your diesel Volkswagen Golf has waited at Pluckley for three hours. Phone us and keep the car where it is. What is key is the trip in, because diesel both combusts and — before that — greases your pump and your injectors, but petrol only ever combusts. Those few miles ran your pump on a fluid robbed of a great deal of its protection, and no quantity of sitting in a car park adds any of that back. Hence the question about miles instead of hours sitting, and hence the advice to leave the keys where they are till our engineers turn up.
How much fuel your pump has pulled is what we're actually asking — not how long ago any of that was. So the enquiry we like runs like this: diesel Renault Megane, a few litres of unleaded, a couple of miles done, now shut off outside Waitrose.
This is what a job in the car park at The Barrow House typically looks like. Our engineers arrive at the car, ask what went in, about how much, and whether the motor has run since — these three answers decide most of the work. Then the polluted mix comes out of the tank, the lines get cleaned, and the fuel filter comes off where your Peugeot 308 has a replaceable one. New diesel goes in and your system is primed. Then our technicians fire it up, check it runs properly, and you drive away.
Out there fine, back gutless. If that was the trip to Simmond's Wood, look at the tank. Diesel gets diluted by petrol, and thin fuel leaks past the fine tolerances supposed to build injection pressure — so every further mile your diesel Nissan Qashqai covered, the less pressure it held onto. Somewhere safe, switch off, phone us.
Switch off where you have stopped, and do not restart it to find somewhere better — close to Egerton Millenium Hall or anywhere at all. Rattling, a ragged idle, white smoke and a dead throttle are a misfuelled diesel Dacia Duster telling you what's wrong.
Pump-side draining for petrol in a diesel
Most of this work starts at the pump, which means a large chunk of it ends up finished on site. If you're still on the forecourt at Charing Motors Ltd., that's generally where this drain gets done — we operate on station forecourts all the time, with the station's permission.
At the forecourt, the mistake gets halted with your engine never run, and nowhere else does it. The few seconds between reading the receipt and going for the keys settle how much needs cleaning. Everywhere other than the forecourt — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — the car was fired up and moved to get there, so fuel was pulled from that tank, through your filter and into the high-pressure pump. That means the fuel lines and your filter require rinsing as well as your tank. It is not a calamity, and we can still sort it out where the car sits.
Staff will normally pitch in pushing it clear of the petrol pump, which lets the next customer get by. Welcome the assistance. Rolling it four bays does not justify starting the engine.
Will our engineers serve your part of Egerton?
Egerton is a rural village, so we get out to it and to anywhere near it on the same journeys: Stonebridge Green, Newland Green, Pembles Cross, Egerton Forstal and Potters Forstal.
Our engineers still come. Those names above are merely the immediate neighbours, and a page is there for nearly all locations around Kent, and so an absence from the list isn't an absence from our coverage. Ring us to ask rather than assuming, especially if you're on the border or somewhere a satnav misreads.
That map shows the area this page covers. The vehicle doesn't need to move to us. Our technicians work throughout all of that — kerbside, forecourts, driveways, car parks.
Broken down by the kerbside around Egerton
Not everybody finds a suitable place to stop. Hazards flashing in a lay-by somewhere, or stopped on the verge of The Street because you worked it out after setting off — our engineers take that call often enough that it's the ordinary kind.
Whether you wait with your car or keep clear of it turns on if staying nearby looks wise. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol pulls that mix further into your fuel system — and oblige it often will, which is why the motor does not get restarted to limp somewhere safer. A technician driving to a difficult place is no bother for us, and it's far better for the vehicle than pressing on.
Already run it? Petrol in a diesel over some miles
under 3 miles from Egerton, the local M20 is what matters here. It will frequently get you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it's smoke, a lumpy idle and power falling away — not a tidy stop. Wrongly fuelled diesels rarely give you one of those.
Do not start it to reposition. Get off at the next safe junction and turn off. It alters what our engineers bring, and so say so when you phone: on a longer drive — anything near the under 25 miles to the closest city — take it the contamination has been through your filter, your pump and the injectors.
Egerton itself
Egerton is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 99 metres, and is located approximately 16 miles from Canterbury. Egerton has a population of around 764 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Egerton is also near to several other small settlements, including Stonebridge Green, Newland Green, and Pembles Cross. Egerton is about 43 miles from London, making it a rural community within commuting distance of the capital.
What our engineers do when our engineers arrive with you in Egerton
- We ask first, price after. What was put in? How much? Has the motor run? Those replies change what the work actually is.
- Out comes the polluted fuel.
- Lines purged, filter cleared. Whatever is left after that is not the thing that caused the trouble.
- Our engineers pour new diesel in and bleed the system.
- The motor is turned on and checked to confirm it runs properly on fresh diesel.
From that point, you're ready to set off. Lasting damage is very rare when it has been spotted soon, and since all of it is done where the vehicle is, it never has to go to a garage.
A separate problem: AdBlue in a diesel tank around Egerton
The fault is not the same, though the first rule is — never start it — if what was put in was AdBlue instead of petrol. Petrol dilutes the diesel and removes the protection the system depends on. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water, and in a diesel tank it leads to corrosion and residue instead.
AdBlue removal around Egerton has a page of its own with the full story on it, including why it is frequently the more significant of the two. Our engineers handle both.
Paying for a petrol-in-diesel drain in Egerton
What changes the figure is set out below, since this job is not one job and we cannot honestly put a single number on this page.
- This is the key one: whether the engine has been started, or driven.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel went into it.
- The kind of fluid in the tank, unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where your vehicle is, and if a technician can sensibly get to and work on it.
Tell us the car, the quantity and whether it has run, and you will get a firm answer rather than a range. If it's not time-critical — your car is at home and going nowhere — works too.
Things our engineers hear about petrol in diesel in Egerton
Fuel drains on a Egerton petrol station forecourt
Yes — forecourts are where a fair part of this gets done. Routinely, provided the site agrees: BP, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where exactly you have stopped. Whether we can work in that location is something our engineers answer straight away.
A few litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
Ratio decides it instead of litres — and more than either, whether the engine has run. An almost empty tank with five litres in it, against a full one with the same five: distinct scenarios, definitely. Either way, the work needed comes down to one thing, which is whether your fuel system has had that blend sucked through it.
I drove it after putting petrol in my diesel. Now what?
Somewhere sensible, then stop, then turn off and keep it off. Driving is what moves the trouble from that tank into your pump and injectors — but it's recoverable a lot more frequently than people expect, and the single most helpful thing you can do now isn't restart the car.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
It is not an alteration, and so a drain then flush carried out properly does not cancel a manufacturer's warranty. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a disagreement with one, which is another good reason to leave the vehicle switched off.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. It belongs to a separate problem from a bygone era, and petrol has diluted something no oil of that kind puts back. The tank still has petrol in it afterwards, and your pump still has to put up with it.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — necessary?
No. Our engineers drain and flush the car wherever it is, so there's no need to bring it to a dealership.
You, and your vehicle, still together?
Never switch the engine on again.
Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, switch off, and no restarting the vehicle after that. Cold, parked, going nowhere: that's the best position to be in. Drivers fear this much more than they need to.
Across Kent and around Egerton: mobile fuel draining, at home or on the forecourt or at the kerbside.