Lewiston: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With the tank still holding the fuel and the engine not yet run, almost every job takes only a drain, so leave your engine off. That outcome is determined in the minutes immediately after the fill-up, and not by the amount that went in. Throughout Lewiston and the remainder of Highland, Petrol in Diesel drains your car and cleans it where it is, whether at a roadside, on a private drive or at a forecourt. Phone before all else starts, so you'll learn what follows next.
What to do now about petrol in a diesel
- Don't start the car. Turned on all the same? Then never believe it. Diesel in a petrol car usually will not run, so the motorist stops and the wear stops with them. Petrol in a diesel? It starts. It ticks over. It moves off happily, for several miles. Motorists get that reversed. It's not all right — your fuel system is wearing down every mile you do.
- Diesel ignites, and before it burns it protects — the high-pressure fuel pump, the injectors. Petrol handles only the burning. So leave the ignition alone too: switching it on is usually sufficient to prime your system, and priming draws petrol from that tank into exactly those components.
- That advice presumes a diesel fuel system tolerates petrol by percentage. It does not. Put diesel on top and nothing at all is taken out; what you have is a larger tank of the same mix. And no, the octane makes no difference — super unleaded is just petrol.
- A car that hasn't moved is the easiest one to sort, so remain where you are if you safely can. Stopped on the verge on Lewiston Road? Hazards on, then keep it there. An awkward place suits us better than a started engine.
- A van turning up rather than circling depends on two things: a postcode that starts IV63 6, and whatever is next to you with a name on it. Have both ready before you call.
- Three facts settle the whole call-out: the fuel you put in, the approximate amount of it, plus whether it has been running since. Our number is 0333 366 0103.
Call us before you move the car. Petrol into a diesel Renault Megane this morning, and the car outside Beauly ever since? Then the day has taken nothing from you: fuel in a tank is harmless, and any damage was done on the trip in, when your pump was drawing diesel that petrol had diluted.
Put diesel in a petrol car and mostly it won't run, and so the motorist stops there and the damage stops with them. Swap it — petrol into a diesel — and the thing starts, ticks over and moves off as though nothing had happened, while the high-pressure pump works without the lubrication the fuel is supposed to be providing. That is the catch, and it's why the diesel Audi A4 will have felt entirely ordinary coming back from the local primary school. They always do. From behind the wheel there is nothing to warn you about, and so nothing tells you. Call us with roughly how far you travelled, and how hard; the second one counts more than the first.
Three replies determine much of the work: what got in, approximately how much, and whether your engine has run since. We ask for them as soon as we get to your car in the car park at Brewery Bar. Then the polluted mixture comes out of the tank, the fuel lines are flushed, and where your Mercedes C-Class has a serviceable filter, it comes off. When clean diesel is in and the fuel system primed, our engineers start the engine and confirm it runs smoothly before you set off.
Clattering, an uneven idle, white smoke, a throttle gone soft. That's a misfuelled diesel Volkswagen Touran telling you what's wrong. Switch off where you have stopped, close to Urquhart & Glenmoriston Parish Church or anywhere else, and never start the car to find a better place.
What takes place next is the issue. Your engine at once sucks the petrol left resting in the filter and the feed lines back round through the pump a second time, because draining a tank does nothing about fuel that has already left it. Drain it then put clean diesel in, somebody certain will tell you — and that suggestion is half true, since do it to a diesel Seat Leon parked up, Bradley Martin Memorial say, and the thing starts, which is what makes it sound sensible. Call us instead. Our technicians flush the circuit and take your filter off where the vehicle has a working one, and that's the difference between your car being fixed and the vehicle only starting.
Clearing petrol from a diesel on the forecourt
Pumps are where the job usually begins, and where a large part of it ends. The drain normally happens right there. Still on the forecourt at Esso? Given the site's agreement, that is a place our engineers work, and often.
A filling station is the single location this is stopped before the motor has fired. The few seconds between reading the till receipt and reaching for your key decide how much needs cleaning. Anywhere other than the forecourt — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the car was fired up and driven to get there, so fuel was pulled from that tank, through your filter then into the high-pressure pump. That means your lines and the fuel filter require cleaning as well as the tank. It's not a catastrophe, and our technicians can still deal with it where the car sits.
The staff will generally offer to move the vehicle away from the petrol pump so the next motorist can get by. That is worth doing. Starting it to move four vehicle lengths is not.
Do we serve your end of Lewiston?
Being a village, Lewiston gets a frequent call, whilst the villages close by go along on that same run: Drumnadrochit and Kilmichael, Strone and Easter Milton, Milton.
If yours is not on this list it does not mean we do not come — there are pages for the majority of locations in Highland, and the ones mentioned above are simply the closest neighbours. Ring us to ask instead of assuming, above all if you're on a boundary or anywhere a satnav misreads.
Look at our map for the area shown here. We operate roadside, on forecourts, on driveways and at car parks throughout all of that, and the vehicle doesn't need to move to us.
Broken down at the kerbside around Lewiston
The opportunity to pull in anywhere safe doesn't come to everyone. If you worked it out after setting off and finished up by the verge beside A82, or in a lay-by somewhere with the hazards flashing, that's a common call for us instead of a rare one.
Safe right there? Sit with it. Not fine? Move out and away from it. Don't fire up the engine to nurse it somewhere better — a diesel running on petrol will often oblige, and every mile it obliges for is dragging that mix further into the system. Driving on does the vehicle far more harm than our van coming out to an inconvenient spot, and that is no trouble for us.
Some miles on petrol in a diesel: now what?
This is where your M90 comes in — over 50 miles from Lewiston. Lost power, a lumpy idle, some smoke: those are the signs when they appear, instead of a clean stop — and a misfuelled diesel will frequently take you onto it and some distance along before anything seems wrong at all.
The next sensible exit is the one to take. Switch off there, and leave the restarting alone. It alters what we bring, and so tell us when you ring: on a longer trip — anything near the under 15 miles to the nearest city — take it the contamination has been through the fuel filter, the pump and the injectors.
A bit about Lewiston
Lewiston is a small village situated on the riverside in the Scottish Highlands, with a population of around 712 people. Lewiston is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near the city of Inverness, approximately 14 miles away. Lewiston sits at an elevation of 35 metres, close to nearby places such as Drumnadrochit and Kilmichael. Lewiston is also relatively distant from major cities like London, being around 438 miles away.
What happens when our technicians get to you around Lewiston
- Our engineers find out what was put in, how much, and whether your engine has run. The answers change the work, which is why our engineers ask before giving a price.
- Our technicians empty that tank of all the polluted mixture.
- What is left in the fuel system should not be what caused the problem, so the fuel lines get cleaned and the fuel filter cleaned.
- New diesel goes in, and then the fuel system gets bled.
- After it is turned on, our engineers confirm it runs correctly on fresh diesel.
Then it's ready to pull away. All of it is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop, and when it has been noticed soon, long-term damage is very rare.
AdBlue in the diesel tank instead, in Lewiston?
If what went in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the first instruction is unchanged — never fire it up — yet the problem is not. The protection a fuel system relies on is stripped away by petrol, which weakens your diesel. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Pour that in with your diesel and you get rust instead, plus residue.
AdBlue removal around Lewiston has a page of its own with the full story on it, including why it's often the more significant of the two. Our technicians cover both.
Budgeting for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain around Lewiston
One price would not be honest here, since this is not one job. These are the things that change it:
- Whether the engine has been started or driven. This is the main one.
- How much of the wrong fuel went in, measured against how much the tank takes.
- The type of fluid in the tank, unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where is it? And can a technician get to it and work there sensibly?
The vehicle, the amount, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back firm instead of as a range. Not urgent, with your car at home and going nowhere? Then is fine.
Petrol in diesel: frequent questions in Lewiston
I'm on a forecourt in Lewiston. Can you drain it here?
Yes, and it is where a good share of this work gets done. Agreement from the site is the condition. Given that, a forecourt like another forecourt nearby is somewhere we're frequently, along with the rest of them locally — so name yours on the phone and you'll hear whether working there is possible.
How much petrol is too much for a diesel?
Litres are not the yardstick. Proportion is, and far more than either, it matters if anything has been run. Five litres in a nearly empty tank is a different situation from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that settles how much work is required is whether that mix has been sucked through the system.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove it. Now what?
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. Driving takes the trouble along — out of the tank, into your pump and injectors. Motorists fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one genuinely valuable thing left to you is not restarting the vehicle.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
No. Carried out properly, emptying and rinsing is no alteration at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is unaffected by it. A dispute over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it switched off.
Two-stroke oil in the tank, and then home?
No. It belongs to a distinct issue from a different era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind puts back. The pump still has to put up with it, since your tank still has petrol in it later on.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
No. Our technicians drain and clean the vehicle wherever it is, so there is no need to take it to a main dealer.
Waiting next to it?
Leave the car shut off.
Already driven it? Then pull in somewhere sensible, turn off, then let the vehicle remain that way. Cold and parked, a motor is in the best position available — and people fear this much more than the recovery rate warrants.
At the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining in Lewiston and across Highland.