Mayfield: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
If you have not fired up the motor yet, don't. A fuel drain and nothing more is nearly always what a vehicle requires while the fuel is still in that tank and the motor has not been started, which is why it is the following few minutes that matter, not how much was put in. Petrol in Diesel goes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest in Mayfield or the rest of Midlothian, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway, and drains and cleans it there. Phone and then our technicians shall tell you what happens after that before you try any more.
What to try first about petrol in a diesel
- Feed a petrol engine diesel and it will typically fail to run at all, and so the driver stops there and so does the damage. Give a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it idles, it moves off — fine enough for a couple of miles. Motorists have that muddled, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. So never crank it. And if started, don't depend on it: that fuel system is wearing while you drive.
- Leave your ignition off as well. Diesel has two tasks: it ignites, and before it burns it lubricates that injection pump and the injectors. Petrol does the first but not the second. Turning the car's ignition on is commonly sufficient to prime the system, which moves the petrol out of the tank and into just those components.
- Never add diesel on top to weaken it. A diesel fuel system doesn't accept petrol by percentage the way that guidance suggests, and topping up clears nothing — it simply leaves you a larger tank of the same mixture. The octane makes no difference either: super unleaded is still petrol.
- A car that hasn't shifted is the quickest one to handle, and so remain where you are if you reasonably can. Pulled up on the verge on Saint Luke's Path? Hazards on, and leave the car there. An odd spot works for us better than a started diesel.
- Check where you are before ringing. A postcode starting EH22 5, and the name of whatever is nearest to you. Otherwise the technician circles rather than showing up.
- Three details settle the whole visit: the fuel you poured in, the ballpark amount of it, and whether it has been turning since. The line is 0333 366 0103.
On a forecourt: removing petrol from your diesel
Plenty of the job begins at a forecourt, so a large part of that gets finished at one. Still at BP? Then that is generally where it gets done. Garage forecourts are normal for us, with the permission of the owner.
At a garage, this gets caught with the motor never run, and nowhere else manages that. Our technicians can still deal with it where it is, even away from the forecourt. In a car park, on a private drive or in a lay-by, the car has been switched on and driven there, and that drew fuel through the fuel filter then into your high-pressure pump, right from the tank. None of that is a disaster, but the flush then has to go past the tank to the fuel lines and your filter, and the few seconds between seeing the till receipt and reaching for your key are what determine that.
Attendants will generally pitch in pushing it away from the pump, which lets the next motorist get by. Welcome the offer. Starting the car just to shift four vehicle lengths is not.
Do our technicians serve your end of Mayfield?
Mayfield is a rural village, so our vans are out to it and to anywhere around it on those same trips: Bryans, Easthouses, Monkswood, Newtongrange and Gowkshill.
We still come. The names above are just the immediate neighbours, and a page exists for most places around Midlothian, and so an absence from the list isn't an absence from our coverage. Phone to check instead of presuming, particularly where you are on a boundary or somewhere your satnav misreads.
The map outlines the area this page spans. Kerbside, forecourt, drive, car park: every bit of it is territory our engineers cover, and none of that needs the vehicle to travel to us.
Move it out of that gateway and fix it later — that is what somebody will say, and it is wrong. Sitting on the zig-zags by the local primary school, a wrongly fuelled diesel Skoda Octavia is an inconvenience and nothing worse. Started three more times for good manners, it's no longer a tank fault but a fuel system one, because priming happens with every start and more petrol goes through the filter toward your pump. Let them moan. Call us.
The parts that should be getting lubricated are wearing instead, and the vehicle gives no sign of that: a diesel on a thinned tank fires up and moves off quite happily. Try the trip home from Rowan Tree Inn? Not a chance. Phone and leave the BMW 3 Series where it stands.
Diesel has to be thick enough to seal the precision parts it flows through, and petrol weakens it. That's the entire process, and it accounts for the ordinary Mayfield Park call: a diesel Nissan Qashqai that went out there without a murmur and came back down on power, lumpy at idle, possibly smoking a little. A diesel injection system works hydraulically as well as chemically — it needs the fuel to hold pressure, not just to burn — so when the fuel dilutes, pressure that should build and stay built starts escaping past gaps instead, and your engine gets a weaker, later, less even delivery than it was built around. None of that is the engine failing, which is the part worth hearing: it is your fuel no longer acting like diesel, and it stops when the fuel is sorted.
Leave the Audi A4 near St Luke's and St Anne's then ring us. We're blunt about not driving on because a worn-out pump loses, and what it loses passes on with the fuel to the fuel injectors downstream.
A vehicle you collected two days ago gets driven further before anyone notices anything, which is the hire and courtesy problem in one sentence — and how far it went is what determines the volume of petrol getting to the fuel injectors. Nothing sloppy about the mistake itself: a current diesel filler neck takes the narrower petrol nozzle with almost no resistance, so unfamiliar locations see most of these. Call us from wherever you are, by Mayfield Community Club or not, and we will head to the Vauxhall Astra.
Kerbside stops around Mayfield
Some people find no sensible spot to stop whatsoever. A routine call for us rather than an odd one: worked out after setting off, ended up on the verge beside Stone Place or in a lay-by with your hazards on.
Whether you remain with the vehicle or step clear of it hangs on whether sitting there is sensible. Don't restart your engine to nurse the car somewhere handier — a diesel running on petrol will frequently oblige, and every mile it obliges for is drawing the blend further into your fuel system. Our van driving to a tricky spot is no trouble for us, and it's far better for your car than driving on.
Petrol in a diesel, and the car has gone
This is where the M8 comes into it — under 15 miles from Mayfield. Some distance along, and onto it in the first place: a misfuelled diesel will usually manage both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is rarely a neat stop. Power falls away, your idle goes rough, and there may be some smoke.
Come off at the first safe exit, switch off, and do not restart it to move it. On a longer run — anything near the under 10 miles to the nearest city — assume the petrol has been through the fuel filter, your pump and your injectors, and tell us when you call. It changes what our technicians bring.
All about Mayfield
Mayfield is a village in Midlothian, situated inland at an elevation of 143 metres, approximately 8 miles from Edinburgh. Mayfield has a mix of housing types, with terraced houses being predominant, and is close to nearby places such as Bryans, Easthouses, and Monkswood. Mayfield is part of the wider Edinburgh urban area, but retains its own distinct character as a separate village.
Our call-out in Mayfield, step by step
- We check what went in, how much, and whether your motor has run. The responses change the work, which is why our engineers ask before quoting.
- Our technicians clear your tank of the contaminated mixture.
- Our technicians rinse the lines and clean your filter, and so what is remaining in the fuel system is not what caused the problem.
- Our technicians pour clean diesel in and bleed the system.
- When it's started, we make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel.
After that it is ready to drive away. Permanent damage is very uncommon when it has been spotted quickly, and since all of it is done where the car is, it never needs to go to a garage.
Mayfield AdBlue removal is a separate job
If what was put in was AdBlue rather than petrol, the opening instruction is the same — don't fire it up — but this issue is not. Petrol dilutes the diesel and takes away the protection the system relies on. Urea dissolved in water, AdBlue, and in a diesel tank that brings rust and residue.
Usually the more serious of the two, AdBlue — and the full story lives on its own Mayfield page. Both are ours to handle.
How much is a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain around Mayfield?
What shifts the price is listed below, since the job isn't one job and our engineers can't honestly put a single number on this page.
- This is the main one: whether the motor has been run, or driven.
- How much of the wrong fuel went in, measured against how much your tank holds.
- Whether it is unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where your vehicle is, and if our van can safely get to and work on it.
Tell us the car, the amount and whether it has run, and you will get a clear answer instead of a range. Motor at home, going nowhere, nothing time-critical about it — is fine for that.
Mayfield drivers ask us these about petrol in diesel
Fuel drains on a Mayfield petrol station forecourt
Yes — forecourts are where a big part of this happens. Often, provided the site consents: Shell, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where exactly you have stopped. Whether our engineers can work in that place is something we answer there and then.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Litres aren't the measure. Ratio is, and far more than either, it counts if anything has been run. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a separate situation from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that determines how much work is required is whether that blend has been drawn through your fuel system.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. Now what?
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. Driving is what shifts the problem from that tank into the pump and injectors — but it is salvageable a lot more commonly than drivers expect, and the single most useful thing you can do now is not restart the vehicle.
Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties
A drain then flush carried out properly is not a change and doesn't void a manufacturer's warranty. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause an argument with one, which is another reason to leave the car 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. Later on? Still petrol in that tank, and a pump that has to put up with the stuff.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — necessary?
No. Our technicians drain and clean your car wherever it is, so there's no need to take it to a main dealer.
Waiting next to it?
Do not turn the car back on.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, turn off, and no restarting it afterwards. Cold, stationary, going nowhere: that is the best place to be in. Motorists fear this much more than they need to.
Across Midlothian and around Mayfield: mobile fuel draining, at home or on the forecourt or at the kerbside.