Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Illogan Highway? Don't Start It
Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans misfuelled vehicles where they are, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a driveway, across Illogan Highway and the rest of Cornwall. The very first thing to do is not to turn on your engine. While your engine has not yet turned over and the petrol is still inside your tank, a drain is nearly always all it needs, and the coming few minutes settle that, not how much went in. Just one call our way will be enough: our engineers shall tell you what happens from here. Do that straight away.
Your first five steps: petrol in a diesel
- Feed a petrol motor diesel and it will usually not run at all, so the driver stops there and so does the harm. Feed a diesel petrol and the thing starts, it idles, it pulls away — all right for a few miles. People have that reversed, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. So do not fire it up. And if started, never depend on it: the fuel system is grinding whenever you drive.
- Flicking the car's ignition on commonly primes that system, and priming is what draws petrol out of the tank and into your pump and injectors. Those are the parts diesel keeps oiled on its way through, before it ignites. Petrol manages the burning and none of the protecting. Leave the ignition alone.
- Never water down it. Diesel put on top removes nothing, and so all you get is more of what was already there, since percentage isn't how a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol. Super unleaded? Simply petrol. The type makes no difference.
- A motor that has never shifted is the easiest one to sort, so stay where you are if you reasonably can. Pulled up on the verge on Druid's Road? Hazards on, and leave the car there. An awkward place suits us better than a started engine.
- Find out where you are before calling. A postcode beginning TR15 3, and the name of whatever is nearest to you. Otherwise our van circles instead of turning up.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Say what went in, roughly how many litres, plus if the motor has started. These three answers settle your whole visit.
The journey back would roughly double it, for no purpose at all. One commute has already put a real amount of petrol-thinned diesel through your high-pressure pump of that Renault Megane. So keep the car where it is. Phone us from the platform if that's handier — no one needs you standing over your car outside Redruth whilst our technicians get it done, and tonight beats finding out on Monday.
Tell us this much and our engineers can work with it: a diesel Volkswagen Tiguan, a couple of litres of unleaded in it, two miles or so, turned off at Co-op Food now. Time passed isn't the thing we need. Fuel pulled by the pump is.
Draining the Dacia Duster, changing the fuel filter where there's a serviceable one, flushing the fuel lines, putting fresh fuel through the entire circuit: that's this job, and it is shaped by the worst of that sitting in your lines instead of in the tank by this point. Three things help when you call from near East Pool Mine — which side the filler is on, whether a van can pull up next to without blocking the road, and if the engine has run since you filled up. On-street is the commonest place our technicians work, so the spot itself is hardly ever the trouble. A narrow parking bay beats a vehicle driven somewhere more handy.
Hire car or company car? Phone them before you ring us — some contracts want the hire firm to authorise the work, and sorting that out first is a great deal quicker than sorting it after that. Then call us about the Audi A3 near Chimney, and don't worry that you can't say how full that tank was. Almost nobody can, in a motor they collected two days ago, and our technicians work it out on the spot. The reason our technicians ask is that petrol in a diesel does its harm as a ratio: the same few litres in a nearly empty tank is a far stronger blend than in a full one. Petrol is rated on how well it resists igniting under pressure, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs — so the stronger that mix, the more it knocks, smokes and goes flat.
Somebody certain will tell you to drain the car and put clean diesel in. Half right, that. Try it on a diesel Vauxhall Astra by Michell's Engine House and your engine will start — which is exactly why it sounds like sense. Here's the problem: there's petrol left in your filter and the feed lines, and the first thing the motor does is pull it back through your pump a second time. Emptying a tank achieves nothing about fuel that already left the tank. Ring us. Your system gets rinsed, your filter comes off where there is one worth removing, and that is what separates a repaired car from one that simply starts.
Pump-side drains for petrol in a diesel
Much of this work starts at a pump, meaning a fair portion of that ends up done at one. The drain normally takes place right there. Still on the forecourt at Morrisons? Given the station's permission, that's somewhere our technicians work, and often.
At a garage, this is stopped with your motor never started, and no place else does it. The few seconds between checking the till receipt and reaching for your key determine how much needs rinsing. Anywhere other than the forecourt — a car park, a drive, a lay-by — your car was started and moved to get there, so fuel was drawn from the tank, through the fuel filter then into the high-pressure fuel pump. That means your lines and the filter require rinsing as well as the tank. It is not a catastrophe, and our engineers can still put it right where your car stands.
The attendants will usually help you push the vehicle clear of the pump so the next motorist can get through. That's worth doing. Starting the car just to shift four vehicle lengths isn't.
Coverage in Illogan Highway
Illogan Highway is a rural village, and so our vans go out to it and to the areas around it on the same journeys: Tolskithy, Blowinghouse, Pool, Carn Brea Village and Tregajorran.
Not on this list? It says nothing. The places above are only the nearest few, and the majority of locations across Cornwall have a page of their own elsewhere on our site. Contact us and enquire instead of assuming — boundaries especially, and wherever your satnav may misread.
See the map for the area covered here. Roadside, forecourt, drive, car park: all of that is ground we work on, and none of that requires your vehicle to come to us.
Stuck at the kerb anywhere around Illogan Highway?
Not everybody gets a suitable spot to stop. If you worked it out after setting off and landed along the verge on Agar Road, or at a lay-by somewhere with the hazard lights flashing, that is a common call for us rather than a rare one.
Wait by your car while it is safe to be there, and clear of the vehicle when it's not. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol draws the blend further into the system — and oblige it frequently will, which is why the engine does not get restarted to limp somewhere better. We'll take our van to an awkward place without any trouble, and for the vehicle that is far better than pressing on.
Already run it? Petrol in a diesel after a couple of miles
over 50 miles from Illogan Highway, your M5 is what matters here. It will frequently get you onto it, and some way along, before you spot a thing. Then it is smoke, an uneven idle and power ebbing away — not a tidy stop. Misfuelled diesels rarely give you one of those.
Take the next exit that is sensible, stop there, and never start it to move it. On a longer drive — anything approaching the under 10 miles to the closest city — assume the petrol has been through your filter, your pump and your injectors, and mention it when you phone. It affects what our technicians bring.
Where's Illogan Highway?
Illogan Highway is a village in Cornwall, situated inland at an elevation of 114 metres, approximately 9 miles from the city of Truro. Illogan Highway has a population of around 2264 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Illogan Highway is located near other small settlements, including Tolskithy, Blowinghouse, and Pool, in the Cornish countryside. Illogan Highway is about 240 miles west of London, in the South West region of England.
What our technicians do when our engineers arrive with you around Illogan Highway
- Our engineers find out what got in, how much, and if the engine has run. The answers shape the work, which is why our technicians ask before pricing.
- The polluted mixture is pulled from your tank.
- Fuel lines are purged through and the fuel filter cleaned, leaving nothing in the fuel system that started any of this.
- Clean diesel goes in, and then your system gets bled.
- Your engine is fired up and checked to make sure it runs properly on clean diesel.
Your car is then ready for you to drive away. Lasting damage is very uncommon when it has been noticed quickly, and as everything is done where the car is, it never needs to go to a workshop.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Illogan Highway is a distinct problem
If what got in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the opening instruction is the same — do not start the vehicle — but the issue isn't. Thinned diesel, and no lubrication left for your fuel system that relies on it. That's petrol. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Tip that in with the diesel and you get corrosion instead, plus deposits.
Our engineers deal with both, and AdBlue removal around Illogan Highway has its own page with the detail — including why it's frequently the more significant of the two.
What a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain will cost around Illogan Highway
Our technicians can't put one figure on this page frankly, as this job isn't one job. What changes it:
- This is the key one: whether your engine has been started, or driven.
- How much of the wrong fuel was put in, judged against how much your tank can hold.
- Whether it was petrol or AdBlue.
- Where is it? And can our van get to it and work there safely?
Tell us what the vehicle is, how much got in, and if the motor has run. A firm answer comes back, not a range. For the vehicle at home that's going nowhere and isn't time-critical, is fine too.
Illogan Highway motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
Fuel drains on a Illogan Highway petrol station forecourt
Yes, and it is where a good part of this work happens. Agreement from the site is the condition. Given that, a forecourt like Texaco is somewhere we are regularly, along with the rest of them locally — so name yours on the phone and you will hear whether working there is possible.
A few litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
Litres aren't the measure. Ratio is, and much 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 pulled right through, or has it not?
I drove the car after putting petrol in my diesel. What now?
Somewhere sensible, then stop, then turn off and leave it off. Driving is what shifts the problem from your tank into the pump and injectors — but it is recoverable a lot more commonly than drivers fear, and the single most helpful thing you can do now is not restart the car.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
A manufacturer's warranty survives a drain and flush done to a correct standard, which is no alteration at all. A disagreement over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it switched off.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old remedy for a distinct fault and it does not replace what petrol has diluted. Petrol remains in that tank after that, whatever else goes in, and the pump gets no respite from it.
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.
Still with your car?
Don't switch it back on.
Turn it off somewhere safe then leave it off, if you have already driven it. This is recoverable from far more frequently than motorists expect, and a parked, cold car is the best position to be in.
Emptying wrongly fuelled vehicles, Illogan Highway and the rest of Cornwall, wherever they are. Kerbside. Forecourt. Home.