Marchmont: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
If you have not turned on the motor as yet, do not. A fuel drain and nothing more is nearly always what a vehicle requires while the petrol is still sitting in that tank and the motor has not yet run, which is why it is the following few minutes that matter, not how much was put in. Petrol in Diesel travels to the vehicle wherever it has stopped in Marchmont or the rest of City of Edinburgh, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway, and drains and cleans it there. Phone and then our team shall show you what comes after that before you try much else.
The first five minutes: petrol in a diesel
- Give a petrol motor diesel and it will generally refuse to run at all, and so the motorist stops there and so does the damage. Feed a diesel petrol and the thing starts, it ticks over, it moves off — all right for several miles. People have that muddled, which is the thing they get wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. So never fire it up. And once started, never trust it: your fuel system is wearing down as you drive.
- Two things, diesel: it combusts, and on the way through it keeps the high-pressure fuel pump and injectors protected. Petrol only manages the one. That is why the ignition is left off too — turn it on and you usually prime the system, and that's petrol exiting your tank for just those components.
- Don't dilute it. Diesel added on top removes nothing, and so all you get is more of what was already there, since percentage is not how a diesel fuel system handles petrol. Super unleaded? Just petrol. The grade makes no difference.
- Wait where you are if you sensibly can. A vehicle that has never moved is the simplest one to sort, and our team would rather travel to an odd spot than have it started. If you're parked on the verge on Marchmont Crescent, switch your hazards on then leave it there.
- Know where you are before calling. A postcode beginning EH9 1, and the name of whatever is closest to you. Otherwise the van circles rather than turning up.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Anticipate three questions — what went in, roughly how much, and if the engine has been run. Those answers determine everything that follows.
Tonight, please, instead of Monday. Taking it home is the one thing not to do: a commute has pushed real volume through the pump already, petrol-thinned diesel and plenty of it, and the return journey would close to double the figure to no end. The Volkswagen Golf can sit outside Edinburgh Waverley perfectly safely. Phone from the platform if handier; standing over us whilst we work is not required.
How much fuel the pump has pulled is what we're really asking — not how long ago any of that was. So the phone call our engineers hope for goes like this: diesel Renault Clio, a few litres of unleaded, a couple of miles covered, now shut off outside Scotmid.
Hazards on. Ignition off. Phone. It is twenty to nine at the gates of the local primary school, you are late, and the till receipt reads unleaded — and although three miles in your Ford Focus seems like nothing, fuel gets metered to demand, and a rushed run demands plenty of it.
Three answers decide most of the work: what went in, roughly how much, and whether the motor has run since. We ask for those answers as soon as we reach the car in the car park at The Earl of Marchmont. Next the tainted blend comes out of your tank, the fuel lines are cleaned, and where your Peugeot 3008 has a serviceable filter, it comes off. When clean diesel is in and the fuel system primed, we start the car and check it runs smoothly before you drive away.
By now the tank is the least of it. Run a diesel and that mix goes into your filter, into your lines, into the pump, into its rail — and none of that leaves with your tank contents. A diesel Hyundai Tucson that made it by German Church wants its system cleared. Draining isn't the same thing.
At the forecourt: draining petrol from your diesel
Forecourts are where the job mostly starts, and where a big part of that finishes. The drain typically takes place right there. Still on the forecourt at JET? Given the owner's consent, that is a spot we work, and often.
Nowhere other than a garage can this be stopped with your engine still unrun. Fuel sucked out of your tank and through the fuel filter, all the way to the high-pressure fuel pump, is what happens when the engine is started and the car is moved to where it is now: the car park, the drive or the lay-by, anywhere other than the forecourt. So the flush covers the filter and the lines along with the tank. That's still not a disaster, and our engineers sort it out where the vehicle is. What determines it is whether the ignition was reached for in the seconds after your receipt was checked.
Away from the pump, the next customer can get through — so yes, let the staff help you wheel the vehicle. Worth it. Moving it four lengths doesn't justify firing the engine.
Marchmont plus the places next to it
These same journeys bring us to The Grange, Sciennes, Grange Park, Bruntsfield and Tollcross along with Marchmont, which is a residential suburb.
If yours isn't on this list that does not mean we never come — there are separate pages for nearly all towns in City of Edinburgh, and the ones named above are just the closest neighbours. Phone and ask instead of guessing — boundaries particularly, and wherever your satnav can get wrong.
The ground this page includes sits on this map. Roadside, forecourt, drive, car park: all of that is ground we work on, and none of that needs your car to move to us.
Marchmont: stuck wherever you pulled up
Some people have no safe place to pull over whatsoever. A routine call for us instead of an odd one: noticed after setting off, landed along the verge on Spottiswoode Road or at a lay-by with your hazards flashing.
Fine right there? Stay beside it. Not safe? Get out and away from it. It will usually oblige. A diesel running on petrol limps along very willingly, and that is the trouble: restart it to get to somewhere handier and the mixture goes further into the system with every mile travelled. A van heading to an awkward place is no trouble for us, and it's a lot better for the car than driving on.
A couple of miles on petrol in a diesel: what now?
Here is where the M8 matters, under 5 miles out of Marchmont. A loss of power, a lumpy idle, some smoke: those are the symptoms when they come, rather than a neat stop — and a wrongly fuelled diesel will often get you onto it and some distance along before anything seems wrong at all.
Get off at the next safe junction, switch off, and do not restart it to move it. It changes what our technicians bring, so say so when you phone: on a longer drive — anything close to the under 3 miles to the closest city — assume the mixture has been through your filter, the pump and the injectors.
All about Marchmont
Marchmont is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 1.2 miles from Edinburgh city centre. Marchmont occupies a coastal setting with an elevation of around 94 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Marchmont is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing, which accommodates a population of around 10618 residents. Marchmont is located near other suburban areas, including The Grange, Sciennes, and Grange Park.
What our engineers do when our technicians arrive with you around Marchmont
- Three things get checked before any quote — your fuel that went in, the amount, and if anything has been run since. Each answer alters the work.
- We empty the tank of all the tainted mixture.
- Fuel lines are rinsed through and the filter cleaned, leaving nothing in your system that started any of this.
- The system gets bled, on clean diesel.
- Once it's started, our technicians confirm it runs properly on clean diesel.
The vehicle is then ready for you to pull away. Our engineers do everything wherever the vehicle has ended up, which means it never needs to be taken to a garage, and when it has been caught soon, it's very uncommon for there to be long-term damage.
Marchmont AdBlue removal is a distinct problem
If what went in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the first instruction is unchanged — don't crank it — yet this problem isn't. Petrol dilutes the diesel and takes away the protection your fuel system depends on. Rust and residue are what a diesel tank gets instead, as AdBlue is urea dissolved in water.
Both are ours. There is a separate Marchmont page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it usually turns out to be the worse of the two.
How much is a petrol-in-diesel drain in Marchmont?
We cannot put one figure on this page frankly, since this job isn't one job. What moves it:
- Has it been started or driven? Nothing else counts for as much.
- How much of the wrong fuel was put in, against how much the tank holds.
- AdBlue or unleaded, whichever got in.
- Access: the vehicle's position, and whether working on it there is sensible for a technician.
The vehicle, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back clear rather than as a range. Car at home, going nowhere, nothing urgent about it — is fine for that.
Petrol in diesel: common queries around Marchmont
At a petrol station in Marchmont, can you do a fuel drain there?
Yes, and it is where a large portion of this work gets done. Tell us which one you are at when you ring and we'll tell you if we can work there. With the owner's permission our technicians work at BP and the other forecourts nearby routinely.
Is there a safe amount of petrol in a diesel?
Whether the motor has run matters a lot more, though the ratio matters too, rather than the litres. What decides how much work is required is whether that mix has been pulled through your fuel system — since though five litres in an almost empty tank is a distinct situation from five in a full one, either way that is the query.
I drove the car after putting petrol in my diesel. Now what?
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. Driving is what moves the issue from that tank into your pump and injectors — but it's salvageable much more frequently than drivers fear, and the single most useful thing you can do now is not restart it.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
It is not a change, and so a drain and flush carried out correctly doesn't invalidate a manufacturer's warranty. A disagreement over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it turned off.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
No. It belongs to a distinct problem from a separate era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind puts back. Later? Still petrol in that tank, and a pump that has to live with the stuff.
Do I need a main dealer for petrol in a diesel?
No. We drain and clean the vehicle wherever it is, so there's no need to bring it to a dealership.
Still with your vehicle?
That engine stays off.
Switch it off somewhere safe and leave it off, if you have already driven it. Cold and still, a motor is in the best place available — and people fear this a lot more than the recovery rate warrants.
Emptying misfuelled cars, Marchmont and the rest of City of Edinburgh, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.