Foots Cray: Petrol in a Diesel Car? Here Is What Happens
Stop. Engine off. Leave the car like that — no second on, no shifting it anywhere. Petrol in a diesel that has not been run is generally a drain plus a flush, done where the vehicle sits, and what you do in the coming few minutes determines that more than anything else. Anywhere you are around Foots Cray, this is how things go from here.
Minute one: petrol in a diesel, engine off
In this sequence, and before everything else:
- Pull the keys out. Even your ignition on its own can prime your fuel system, pulling petrol out of the tank to precisely the parts it damages, and so keep the vehicle off wholly.
- Don't top it up with diesel. Adding diesel takes out nothing. You end up with a fuller tank of the same mixture.
- Close to moving traffic? Then your hazards go on before anything else, so the vehicle is simple to see.
- By hand, never under the engine: that is how it leaves the pump. Get the forecourt attendants to help you push, whatever the mileage.
- The first thing you will be asked is which fuel went in and about how much — and the till receipt shows both. Hold on to it.
On the M20, under 5 miles from Foots Cray, the next junction is the spot to leave it; elsewhere, the first safe spot to stop. Don't push on to the services. Then go back to stage one.
The fork in each Foots Cray fuel drain: has it run yet?
What happens after this turns on one answer, and only one.
If it has not once been started:
- No place but that tank: that's where the petrol yet is.
- Where your car stands is normally where this work is done: a drain, then a flush.
- Being here is as good as it gets — which is the entire point of stage one.
Engine run, even for a moment?
- Your lines and the filter already hold petrol pulled from your tank.
- Your high-pressure pump and the injectors get it on a longer run.
- The job expands with the mileage — lines rinsed, filter dealt with, occasionally more.
The reason the line falls there: diesel protects your high-pressure pump as well as the fuel injectors as it flows through them, and petrol doesn't. In your tank, sitting still, petrol harms nothing. Move the petrol, though, and it wears the very parts doing the moving.
What to have prepared when you call about petrol in a diesel from Foots Cray
Get ready a little, and the van finds you instead of circling.
- Your whereabouts: a postcode beginning DA14 5 works best.
- Wherever you have parked, the road's name is useful — whether that's Baugh Road or somewhere else — and so does the name of a car park.
- What a car park serves is the easiest way to find it, and so mention the landmark — like the one outside Lidl.
- Tell us what your car is — make, model — and confirm it is diesel.
- Petrol or AdBlue? Say which. They are separate jobs, and AdBlue has a separate Foots Cray page.
- The quantity: the receipt's litres, or otherwise how long you had the nozzle in.
- Has it run? If so, tell us how far it went, and how it was driven.
- The owner may have to approve the work under some hire and company agreements — which is why it's quicker to settle whose vehicle it is before we arrive.
Next, 0333 366 0103. Not time-critical, your car left at home with nowhere to be? Then will do as well.
Foots Cray fuel drain on its way? While you wait
Hold to these: well-meant help does the damage during the wait.
- Where the vehicle has stopped settles where you wait. Somewhere exposed: away from it, away from the traffic. Safe: with it. Either way, safety ahead of your car.
- Not to roll it a few yards, not to check it is all right, not as a passer-by's favour: no one starts it.
- None of it gets the petrol back out — not two-stroke oil, not injector cleaner, not something from your boot. So no additives.
- No home-made emptying. Siphoning petrol into a can at the roadside is dangerous, and it leaves your fuel that has already gone beyond your tank.
- Leave the ignition off — your windows and your radio too.
When the van gets there: your fuel drain, step by step
- Fuel, volume, whether it's run: the replies decide the job, and that is why you get a price after them instead of before.
- Out of the tank comes the tainted mixture: that tank is drained.
- Petrol that has shifted beyond the tank sits in the fuel lines if it ran, and the lines are purged to clear it.
- Cleared, or replaced if your car has a workable one: the filter is sorted next.
- Bleeding the system follows once clean diesel is in.
- Starting the car. After your system is primed with fresh diesel, our engineers fire it up and make sure it runs correctly.
Till it runs on fresh diesel, our technicians stay with it. The vehicle returns to normal driving right away, and lasting damage is very unusual when it has been spotted early.
Foots Cray, after your fuel drain: back on the road
- Once it has been started on fresh fuel, there is nothing unusual to do: drive normally.
- Pull over and ring us back if anything looks wrong early on — a light on the dash, smoke from your exhaust, an idle that runs rough, or a throttle with a dead spot.
- Your paperwork covers the question a rental company, fleet manager or insurer may ask: what work was carried out. File it.
- The handle's colour isn't the thing to go by next time — the label on the petrol pump is.
About Foots Cray itself
Foots Cray is a suburban area in southeast London, situated on the River Cray at an elevation of around 28 metres. Foots Cray lies approximately 12 miles from central London and is bordered by nearby places such as Ruxley and Albany Park. Foots Cray has a population of around 4069 people, predominantly residing in flats. Foots Cray is characterized by its riverside setting and relatively low elevation,
Fuel drains about Foots Cray and beyond
Petrol in diesel call-outs around Foots Cray and in Ruxley, Albany Park or Upper Ruxley all go to the same teams, which cover most of Greater London as well. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're somewhere hard to explain or close to a border.
Ring, and leave the car off — petrol in a diesel across Greater London
Engine off. Keys out. Receipt in your pocket. That's the whole of stage one, and Petrol in Diesel takes it from there — at the roadside, at the forecourt or on your drive.