Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Furzehill? Don't Start It
Petrol in Diesel drains and flushes misfuelled cars where they sit, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a drive, all over Furzehill and the remainder of Dorset. The very first thing to do is not to start your engine. While your engine has not yet run and the fuel is still in your tank, a drain is almost always all it requires, and the following few minutes settle that, not how much went in. Just one call to us will be enough: we shall show you what follows next. Do that straight away.
The next five minutes: petrol in a diesel
- Never fire it up — and do not rely on it if it runs. This is the part people have wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. A petrol motor filled with diesel typically just cannot run, so the driver stops and the damage halts with them. A diesel filled with petrol usually starts, idles and pulls away without complaint for several miles. It is not okay. It is eating into that fuel system while you drive.
- Flicking your ignition on commonly primes the system, and priming is what moves petrol out of your tank and into your pump and injectors. Those are the parts diesel keeps oiled on its way through, before it ignites. Petrol does the burning and none of the oiling. Leave your ignition off.
- Topping up takes out nothing. It hands you a bigger tank of the same mix, since a diesel fuel system won't accept petrol by percentage the way that advice assumes — so don't put diesel on top to weaken it. Type is beside the point too: super unleaded is petrol.
- We'd sooner travel to a difficult spot than have it started — so if you safely can, sit tight. Nothing is simpler to sort out than a vehicle that has never shifted. On the verge on Smugglers Lane, that means hazards on and keep the car.
- Before you dial, have your position. Anything closest to you with a name on it, plus a postcode that starts BH21 4 — that's what decides whether our van shows up or circles.
- Three replies shape the full call-out: the liquid you put in, the ballpark volume involved, plus whether it has been running since. The line is 0333 366 0103.
The trip back would more or less double it, for no gain at all. One commute has already sent a real quantity of petrol-thinned diesel through the high-pressure pump of that Renault Megane. So leave the car where it stands. Phone us from the platform if that is easier — no one needs you standing over the vehicle outside Hamworthy whilst our engineers work, and tonight beats finding out on Monday.
A passer-by will urge you to move it out of the gateway and sort it out later. Don't. A wrongly fuelled diesel BMW 3 Series on the zig-zags by Wimborne First School and Nursery is a hassle; the same motor fired up three more times to be helpful is a fuel system and not a tank. Every restart primes your lines and drags more petrol through the filter and into your pump. Stay put, let them grumble, then ring us.
Pull over somewhere safe, turn off then ring us. Fine on the way out to Catley Copse, gutless on the way back? Then look at that tank. Petrol weakens diesel; thinner fuel leaks past the close-fitting components that build injection pressure; and the further the diesel Audi A4 travelled, the less of that pressure it held.
Why so direct about leaving the keys alone? Because the pump is before your injectors, and a worn-out one sends whatever it gives off onward with your fuel. Call us. Leave the Ford Focus close to HoneyBrook Farm.
Fixed and starting are not the same thing, and the difference is the system: our engineers flush it, and take your filter off where there is a workable one. Compare that with the sure of themselves advice you'll get — drain it, refill with new diesel. Half true. Do exactly that to a diesel Citroen C3 near Walford Mill Crafts and it will start, which is exactly why the advice sounds reasonable. Then the motor draws the petrol left behind in the fuel filter, and in the feed lines, straight back through your pump, as draining a tank does nothing whatever about fuel that has already left it. Phone us instead.
Pump-side drains for petrol in a diesel
Forecourts are where the work mostly begins, and where a big part of it ends. If you are still at the forecourt at BP, that is usually where this drain happens — we work on station forecourts all the time, with the owner's agreement.
At a garage, this gets halted with your motor never started, and no place else manages that. Our engineers can still put it right where it sits, even away from the pumps. In a car park, on a drive or in a lay-by, the vehicle has been started and driven there, and that pulled fuel through the filter then into the high-pressure fuel pump, right from the tank. None of that is a disaster, though the flush then has to reach past that tank to your lines and the fuel filter, and the few seconds between seeing the receipt and reaching for your key are what settle that.
Roll the vehicle out of the way if the staff offer, and they generally will. The next customer gets past the pump, and that is worth doing. Shifting it four spaces does not warrant firing the engine.
Parts we serve around Furzehill
As a rural village, Furzehill gets a regular call, whilst the areas nearby come along on that same journey: Clapgate and Grange, Merry Field Hill and Pig Oak, Colehill.
There are separate pages for nearly all towns across Dorset, and the ones listed above are simply the closest neighbours — so yours being left off the list tells you nothing about whether we come. Phone to enquire instead of guessing — county lines above all, and anywhere a satnav can struggle with.
The map is the ground the page covers. Kerbside, forecourt, driveway, car park: all of it is territory our technicians cover, and none of that asks your car to travel to us.
Kerbside call-outs in Furzehill
Not everyone gets a chance to pull over somewhere safe. Hazards going at a lay-by somewhere, or pulled onto the verge on Furzehill since you realised after setting off — our technicians take that call so often that it is the normal kind.
Clear of your car if it is not wise to sit in it, by it when it is. Do not fire up the motor to limp it somewhere better — a diesel running on petrol will usually oblige, and every mile it obliges for is dragging that mixture further into the system. Driving on causes the car far more harm than a technician heading out to a difficult place, and that's no trouble for us.
So you've run it? Petrol in a diesel after some miles
Here is where the local M27 comes into it — under 25 miles from Furzehill. It will frequently take you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it's some smoke, a lumpy idle and power ebbing away — not a neat stop. Misfilled diesels rarely give you one of those.
Don't start it to move it. Get off at the first sensible exit then turn off. On a longer run — anything close to the under 25 miles to the closest city — take it the contamination has been through the filter, your pump and the fuel injectors, and tell us when you call. It alters what our technicians bring.
A little about Furzehill
Furzehill is a small village in Dorset, situated inland at an elevation of 42 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Furzehill lies near the villages of Clapgate and Grange, and is close to Merry Field Hill. Furzehill is approximately 19 miles from Salisbury and 93 miles from London, making it a rural community with a relatively small population of around 500 residents. Furzehill has a peaceful setting, surrounded by the Dorset countryside.
When our engineers arrive with you in Furzehill: what happens
- Three things get established before any quote — the fuel that went in, the amount, and if anything has been run since. Each answer changes the work.
- That tank gets drained completely.
- What is left in the system shouldn't be what created the problem, so the fuel lines get cleaned and your filter cleaned.
- New diesel goes in, and then your system gets primed.
- When it's fired up, we check it runs properly on new diesel.
From that point, you're ready to drive away. There's no need to go to a garage at any stage, since the work is all done where the car is, and when it's caught soon, permanent damage is very unusual.
AdBlue in your diesel tank instead, around Furzehill?
If what went in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the first step is the same — don't fire it up — but the fault isn't. Petrol does two things to diesel: dilutes it, and takes away the protection your fuel system depends on. Urea dissolved in water, AdBlue, and in a diesel tank that brings rust and residue.
Both are ours. There's a separate Furzehill page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it frequently turns out to be the worse of the two.
How much is a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain around Furzehill?
What shifts the figure is listed below, because the job isn't one job and our engineers can't frankly put a single figure on this page.
- Has it been started or driven? Nothing else matters for as much.
- How much of the wrong fuel went in, against how much your tank holds.
- The sort of fluid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
- Where the vehicle is, and whether our van can sensibly get to and work on it.
A firm answer rather than a range is what you get for telling us three things: your car, the amount, and if it has run. For the car at home that's going nowhere and is not pressing, works too.
Furzehill motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station in Furzehill?
A big part of this work gets done there, so yes. Tell us which one you are at when you call and we will tell you whether our technicians can work there. With the site's consent our technicians attend Shell and the other forecourts nearby routinely.
Is there a safe quantity of petrol in a diesel?
It hinges on the ratio rather than the litres, and much more on whether your motor has run. Five litres into an almost dry tank is not five into a full one, no. But both land on the same question in the end: has that mixture been pulled right through, or has it not?
Petrol in my diesel, and I have driven the car
Somewhere safe, then stop, then turn off and keep it off. Driving takes the issue along — out of that tank, into the pump and injectors. People fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one truly valuable thing left to you is not restarting it.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
A manufacturer's warranty survives a drain then flush done to a good standard, which is no change at all. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing likelier to cause a dispute 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 distinct problem from a different era, and petrol has weakened something no oil of that kind restores. The tank still has petrol in it afterwards, and the pump still has to cope with it.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — essential?
You do not need one. Your car is drained and flushed wherever it is, with no need to take it to a franchised dealer.
Is your vehicle still with you?
Your engine stays off.
If you have already driven the vehicle, stop somewhere safe, turn it off and leave it off. Cold and stationary, a motor is in the best place available — and people fear this far more than the recovery rate warrants.
Emptying misfilled vehicles, Furzehill and the rest of Dorset, wherever they are. Kerbside. Forecourt. Home.