Hollow Brook: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With the tank still holding the petrol and the motor not yet turned over, almost every job needs only a drain, so keep the motor off. That outcome is decided in the minutes straight after filling up, and not by the amount that got in. Across Hollow Brook and the remainder of Somerset, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and flushes it where it stands, whether by a roadside, on a driveway or at a forecourt. Just one ring our way will be plenty: our engineers shall show you what follows after this. Make this right away.
Petrol in a diesel: what to do now
- Don't start it — and never believe it if it does start. This is the bit most people have wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. A petrol motor fed diesel generally just can't run, and so the driver stops and the wear halts with them. A diesel fed petrol generally starts, ticks over and pulls away without complaint for a few miles. It isn't okay. It is wearing out that fuel system while you drive.
- Two jobs, diesel: it burns, and on the way through it keeps the high-pressure pump and injectors oiled. Petrol only manages the one. Which is why your ignition remains off as well — switch it on and you usually prime your system, and that's petrol exiting your tank for exactly those parts.
- Don't water down it. Diesel poured on top clears nothing, so all you have is more of what was already there, since percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system handles petrol. Super unleaded? Just petrol. The octane makes no difference.
- Sit tight if it's sensible to. Hazards on, motor off, leave the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Bonhill Lane, anywhere — an awkward spot for us is better than a started diesel, and nothing is simpler for us to sort than a vehicle that never shifted.
- Check where you are before calling. A postcode starting BS39 5, and the name of whatever is next to you. Otherwise the technician circles instead of arriving.
- Three replies decide the entire job: the fuel you put in, the ballpark measure of it, and if anything has been turning since. Our number is 0333 366 0103.
Never take it home. Petrol-thinned diesel has run through the injection pump in real volume on the trip in, and the way back would about double that for nothing at all. Phone — the platform is fine. There's no need to stand over your Volkswagen Golf at Parson Street whilst the work gets done, and our team would very much rather talk to you tonight than realise on Monday.
You drive off at the end, once our engineers have started the car and confirmed it runs smoothly on clean diesel, with the fuel system bled. Before that, in the car park by The Red Lion, the polluted fuel comes out of the tank, the fuel lines get rinsed and the filter comes off where your Audi A4 has a serviceable one. Everything begins with three questions when our engineers reach your car: what was put in, how much of it, and whether it has been fired up since.
Injection pressure is the part being lost. Petrol weakens diesel, and runnier fuel leaks past the tightly fitted components that are meant to build that pressure, and so the farther a diesel BMW 5 Series travelled, the less well it held. Fine on the way out and sluggish on the way back is how that drive to Curl's Wood went, then, and the tank is the place to look. Pull in somewhere sensible, switch off then ring us.
Why we're blunt about not driving on: the pump waits ahead of the injectors, so whatever a wearing pump loses travels downstream with the fuel. Leave the Vauxhall Astra close to Chew Valley Library and ring us.
A person sure of themselves will tell you to drain it and put new diesel in. Half true, that. Try it on a diesel Mercedes A-Class near Bishop Sutton Village Hall and the motor will start — which is exactly why it sounds like sense. Here's the catch: there's petrol left in your filter and the feed lines, and the first thing the engine does is pull it back through the pump a second time. Emptying a tank achieves nothing about fuel that already left the tank. Phone us. The circuit gets purged, the filter comes off where there's one worth removing, and that is what separates a repaired motor from one that only starts.
Can petrol be drained from your diesel at the forecourt?
Most of the work begins at a pump, so a large share of it ends up completed there. Our technicians work on petrol station forecourts routinely, with the station's agreement, so if you are still at Esso that is normally where the drain gets done.
The forecourt is the only spot this gets halted before the engine has fired. The few seconds between reading the receipt and going for the key settle how much requires rinsing. Everywhere other than a forecourt — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the car was switched on and driven to get there, so fuel was sucked from the tank, through the filter and into your high-pressure pump. That means the lines and your filter need flushing as well as that tank. It's not a calamity, and our technicians can still sort it out where your car sits.
Attendants will generally chip in pushing it away from the pump, which lets the next customer get through. Accept the help. Starting it just for four vehicle lengths? Not a chance.
Hollow Brook plus the towns next to it
As a small village, Hollow Brook sees a frequent call, and the places nearby go with it on that same round: Bishop Sutton and Newtown, Golds Cross and Stowey, Moorledge.
Our technicians still come. Those places above are just the closest neighbours, and a page is there for nearly all towns around Somerset, so an absence from the list is not an absence from the coverage. Call us and enquire instead of guessing, above all where you're on the border or somewhere the satnav struggles with.
The ground the page includes is on this map. All of it is ground our engineers work: a kerbside, a forecourt, a private drive, a car park. You never move the vehicle anywhere.
Hollow Brook: stranded where you parked
Not everybody finds a decent place to stop. A common call for us instead of an odd one: worked out after setting off, ended up along the verge of Walley Lane or in a lay-by with the hazards going.
Clear of your car if it is not wise to wait inside, by it when it is. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol drags the mix further into your fuel system — and oblige it often will, which is why the motor doesn't get restarted to limp somewhere safer. A technician heading to an awkward location is no trouble for us, and it is a lot better for the car than pressing on.
A couple of miles on petrol in a diesel: now what?
This is where the M32 counts, under 10 miles out of Hollow Brook. It will often take you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it's smoke, a rough idle and power falling away — not a neat stop. Wrongly fuelled 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 affects what our engineers bring, and so tell us when you phone: on a longer drive — anything approaching the under 10 miles to the nearest city — assume the contamination has been through the filter, your pump and your injectors.
A little about Hollow Brook
Hollow Brook is a lakeside locality in Somerset, situated near the cities of Bristol and Bath, with a mix of rural and suburban characteristics. Hollow Brook has a relatively low elevation of 62 metres and is surrounded by other small settlements such as Bishop Sutton and Newtown. Hollow Brook is home to around 508 residents, who mostly live in detached houses. Hollow Brook is located near several other nearby places, including Golds Cross, and is about 7.7 miles from Bristol.
What follows when our engineers arrive with you in Hollow Brook
- The answers alter the work, which is why we ask before pricing: what got in, how much of that, and whether the engine has run.
- Out flows the contaminated fuel.
- Lines flushed, filter cleared. Whatever is left later isn't the thing that created the issue.
- The fuel system gets bled, on new diesel.
- The motor is started and checked to make sure it runs properly on fresh diesel.
From there, you're ready to drive away. Everything is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to go to a garage, and when it has been caught early, lasting damage is very rare.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Hollow Brook is a different job
If what was put in was AdBlue rather than petrol, the opening instruction is the same — don't fire it up — but this fault is not. Petrol does two things to diesel: thins it, and removes the protection the fuel system relies on. Rust and deposits are what a diesel tank gets instead, as AdBlue is urea dissolved in water.
Usually the more serious of the two, AdBlue — and the details lives on its own Hollow Brook page. Both are ours to deal with.
What a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain will cost around Hollow Brook
What moves the price is set out below, because the job isn't one job and our engineers can't truthfully put a single price on this page.
- Started? Driven? Either answer counts more than anything else on this list.
- Wrong fuel in, against what your tank holds — that proportion.
- The type of liquid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
- Where the car is, and if our van can sensibly reach and work on it.
Tell us the car, the quantity and if it has run, and you'll get a firm answer instead of a range. For the vehicle at home that is going nowhere and isn't pressing, is fine too.
Questions we get about petrol in diesel around Hollow Brook
At a petrol station in Hollow Brook, can you do a fuel drain there?
Much of what our technicians do happens nowhere else. So yes. Often, provided the site agrees: Texaco, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where precisely you have stopped. Whether we can work in that spot is something we answer straight away.
How much petrol is too much for a diesel?
Whether your engine has run matters far more, though the proportion matters too, instead of the litres. An almost empty tank with five litres in it, against a full one with the same five: distinct situations, of course. Either way, the work required comes down to one thing, which is whether the system has had that mix pulled through it.
I drove it after putting petrol in my diesel. What next?
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. Driving takes the trouble along — out of the tank, into the pump and injectors. Motorists fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one genuinely helpful thing left to you isn't restarting the car.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
A drain and flush carried out properly isn't an alteration and does not invalidate a manufacturer's warranty. What's likelier to start a disagreement is a diesel that has been run on petrol. One more reason for the engine to stay off.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
Two-stroke oil solves a different problem, and an old one at that. Nothing it does puts back what petrol weakened. No. The pump still has to live with it, because the tank still has petrol in it after that.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
There is no need to take it to a main dealer, since our engineers drain and clean your car wherever it is.
Waiting next to it?
Don't turn the engine on again.
Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, turn off, and no restarting the vehicle later. Cold, parked, going nowhere: that is the best position to be in. Motorists fear this a lot more than they need to.
Emptying misfuelled cars, Hollow Brook and the rest of Somerset, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.