Petrol in a Diesel Car in Granton
With that tank still carrying the petrol and your engine not yet run, nearly every job needs only a drain, so keep your engine off. That outcome is settled in the minutes straight after the fill-up, rather than by the amount that got in. All over Granton and the remainder of City of Edinburgh, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and flushes it where it is, whether at a roadside, on a drive or at a forecourt. A single ring our way is plenty: we can show you what comes from here. Make it first.
What next? Petrol in a diesel, in turn
- Feed a petrol motor diesel and it will typically refuse to run at all, and so the driver stops there and so does the damage. Give a diesel petrol and the thing starts, it ticks over, it pulls away — fine enough for a couple of miles. Most people have that backwards, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel specifically. So never crank it. And once started, do not trust it: that fuel system is grinding while you drive.
- Two tasks, diesel: it ignites, and on the way through it keeps your injection pump and injectors lubricated. Petrol only handles the one. That is why your ignition is left off also — flick it on and you usually prime that system, and that's petrol leaving the tank for precisely those components.
- That advice supposes a diesel fuel system accepts petrol by percentage. It will not. Pour diesel on top and nothing at all is removed; what you have is a fuller tank of the same blend. And no, the grade makes no difference — super unleaded is simply petrol.
- Remain where you are if you reasonably can. A motor that has never shifted is the simplest one to sort, and we'd sooner travel to a difficult place than have it started. If you're pulled up on the verge on Waterfront Avenue, turn those hazards on then leave the vehicle there.
- The van turning up rather than circling depends on two things: a postcode beginning EH5 1, and whatever is closest to you with a name on it. Have both prepared before you phone.
- What got in, about how many litres, and also whether the motor has fired — the three replies shape the entire visit. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us.
Clearing petrol from a diesel at the forecourt
Much of this job begins at a forecourt, which means a good chunk of that gets finished on site. We operate on station forecourts routinely, with the owner's consent, and so if you're still at Morrisons that's normally where the drain happens.
A filling station is the one spot the mistake can be caught before your engine has fired. Everywhere else — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — your car was started and moved to get there, which means fuel was drawn from the tank, through the fuel filter and into the high-pressure fuel pump. That is not a calamity, and we can still deal with it where it stands. It does mean your lines and the filter need cleaning as well as that tank, and that's determined by the few seconds between checking the till receipt and reaching for your key.
The attendants will normally offer to roll it clear of the petrol pump so the next driver can get past. It is worth doing. Starting the car to roll four car lengths is not.
Tell us this much and our engineers can work with it: a diesel Ford Focus, some litres of unleaded in it, two miles or so, switched off outside Lidl now. Time elapsed is not the thing we need. Fuel pulled by your pump is.
Your BMW 5 Series remains where it is in the car park by The Anchor Inn for the whole job, which normally runs like this. First our technicians ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether the motor has run since, because much of the work rests on those replies. The tank is emptied of the tainted blend, the lines are rinsed, and the filter comes off if it's a serviceable one. With new diesel in and your system bled, the vehicle is fired up and tested, and once it's running smoothly you drive away.
Pull in somewhere safe, turn off then ring us. Normal on the way out to granton:hub Community Garden, flat on the way back? Then look at the tank. Petrol thins diesel; thinner fuel seeps past the precision parts that build injection pressure; and the farther your diesel Kia Sportage travelled, the less of that pressure it held.
About as well as this goes, once the engine has turned: away from the pumps, receipt read, and the diesel Peugeot 2008 parked by Granton:hub scarcely two streets on. Call us, and leave it off. A short hop does genuinely help. It was still a start and still a drive, though, so the fuel filter and your pump have had diluted fuel through them — hence cleaning the lines rather than only draining the tank.
New locations are where this occurs most, and the reason is mechanical instead of sloppy: the smaller petrol nozzle goes into a current diesel filler neck with almost no resistance at all. Fuelled up by Going to the Beach without thinking, in a diesel Mercedes GLC you have had for two days? Call us where you are. Hire and courtesy cars tend to get driven further before anyone realises, and mileage is what determines how much petrol gets to your injectors.
Places our team serve near Granton
Granton is a residential suburb, so we head out to it and to the areas around it on the same trips: Pilton, Wardie, West Pilton, Muirhouse and Craigleith.
We do come. The names above are only the immediate neighbours, and a page exists for nearly all places around City of Edinburgh, so an absence from the list is not an absence from our coverage. Close to the boundary, or somewhere your satnav gets wrong? Contact us to ask rather than guessing.
The ground the page includes is on the map. We operate roadside, at forecourts, on driveways and in car parks throughout all of that, and the car never needs to move to us.
Stuck by the kerbside in Granton
Some drivers get no sensible place to pull over at all. Set off, then realised? Finished up along the verge of Madelvic Square, or stuck in some lay-by with the hazards going? That is a routine call here. Not an unusual one.
Wait beside your car while it's safe to wait inside, yet out of it when it is not. Never fire up the motor to limp the car somewhere handier — a diesel running on petrol will usually oblige, and every mile it obliges for is drawing that mixture further into your fuel system. A van coming to a tricky place is no problem for us, and it's much better for your car than pressing on.
Petrol in a diesel, but the vehicle has rolled
The M8 is the one that matters now, and sits under 5 miles from Granton. A wrongly fuelled diesel will often get you onto it and some distance along before anything seems wrong, while the symptoms when they appear are usually a loss of power, a rough idle and some smoke instead of a tidy stop.
Do not restart it to move it. Pull off at the next safe junction then turn off. Long run? Anything approaching the under 3 miles to the closest city and you should presume the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of it got to by the contamination. Say that on the phone, as it affects what goes in our van.
A bit about Granton
Granton is a coastal suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 2.6 miles northwest of Edinburgh's city centre. Granton sits at an elevation of 17 metres, overlooking the Firth of Forth, and is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing. Granton is close to neighbouring areas such as Pilton, Wardie, and West Pilton, and is home to around 5436 residents.
What comes next when our engineers reach you around Granton
- Three things get established before any quote — the fuel that was put in, the amount, and whether anything has been run since. Each answer shapes the work.
- Out goes the contaminated fuel.
- What is left in your system should not be what created the issue, and so the fuel lines get rinsed and your filter cleared.
- Clean diesel goes in, and then your system gets bled.
- The engine is fired up and checked to make sure it runs properly on clean diesel.
That leaves the car ready to drive away. All of it is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a garage, and when it has been noticed early, long-term damage is very unusual.
Granton AdBlue removal is a separate matter
The problem isn't the same, though the opening instruction is — never crank it — if what was put in was AdBlue rather than petrol. Diluted diesel, and no lubrication left for the fuel system that depends on it. That's petrol. Urea in water, AdBlue, and in a diesel tank that brings corrosion and build-up.
Both are ours. There's a separate Granton page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it usually turns out to be the worse of the two.
What a petrol-in-diesel drain costs around Granton
Honestly, no single price belongs on a page like this. The job varies. Here's what changes it:
- Has it been started or driven? Nothing else matters for as much.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel went into it.
- Which went in: unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where the car is, and whether a 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: the car, the amount, and whether it has run. Not urgent, with your car at home and going nowhere? Then does the job.
Things our technicians get about petrol in diesel in Granton
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station in Granton?
Plenty of what our engineers do happens nowhere else. So yes. Tell us which one you're at when you call and we will tell you whether our engineers can work there. With the owner's permission our engineers visit Shell and the other forecourts around town all the time.
A couple of litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
Litres are not the measure. Ratio is, and far more than either, it matters if anything has been run. Five litres into an almost dry tank isn't five into a full one, no. But both land on the same question in the end: has that blend been sucked right through, or has it not?
Petrol in my diesel, and I have driven it
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. Not restarting it is the single most helpful thing available to you now. Driving does move the problem out of that tank and into your pump and injectors, yes, and it stays fixable far more frequently than motorists fear.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
It's not a change, so a drain and flush carried out properly doesn't void a manufacturer's warranty. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing likelier to cause a disagreement with one, which is another good reason to leave the vehicle turned off.
Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home?
Two-stroke oil solves a separate fault, and an old one at that. Nothing it does puts back what petrol thinned. No. Afterwards? Still petrol in that tank, and a pump that has to live with the stuff.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
Wherever the car is, we drain and clean it there, so a visit to the main dealer doesn't come into it.
You, and the car, still together?
Do not turn the car on again.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, switch off, and no restarting the vehicle later on. This is recoverable from a lot more often than people fear, and a parked, cold motor is the best position to be in.
Across City of Edinburgh and in Granton: on-site fuel draining, at home or on the forecourt or at the roadside.