Petrol in a Diesel Car in Mere
If you have not started the engine as yet, do not. A fuel drain and nothing else is almost always what a car needs while the petrol is still in that tank and the engine has not yet been started, which is why it's the next few minutes that matter, not how much was put in. Petrol in Diesel travels to your car wherever it has come to rest in Mere or the rest of Wiltshire, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a private drive, and drains and cleans it there. One ring to us will be plenty: we can show you what happens from here. Make this right away.
Petrol in a diesel: what to try next
- Do not fire it up. Started regardless? Then never depend on it. Diesel in a petrol motor typically cannot run, so the motorist stops and the harm ends with them. Petrol in a diesel? It starts. It ticks over. It pulls away normally, for a couple of miles. People get that backwards. It is not all right — that fuel system is wearing down every mile you drive.
- Turning the car's ignition on often primes that system, and priming is what draws petrol out of that tank then into your pump and injectors. Those are the components diesel keeps protected on its way through, before it burns. Petrol does the burning and none of the oiling. Leave your ignition be.
- Topping up removes nothing. It hands you a larger tank of the same mix, because a diesel fuel system won't cope with petrol by percentage in the way that guidance assumes — so do not put diesel on top to water down it. Octane is immaterial too: super unleaded is petrol.
- A motor that hasn't moved is the easiest one to handle, so stay where you are if you sensibly can. Parked on the verge on Boar Street? Hazards on, and keep the car there. A difficult spot suits us better than a started motor.
- Check where you are before ringing. A postcode beginning BA12 6, and the name of whatever is nearest to you. Otherwise the technician circles rather than showing up.
- Ring 0333 366 0103. Tell us what went in, approximately how much, and whether the engine has run. These three replies determine your whole call-out.
Petrol in a diesel Volkswagen Tiguan, parked outside Gillingham (Dorset) since breakfast? The wait has lost you nothing — fuel sitting in a tank is inert. It was the drive in that drew thinned diesel through your pump. Ring us before you move the car.
The difficult part is that bay, not the fuel. Cars either side of you, a trolley shelter behind, and occasionally a height barrier on the way in that determines if a technician can reach you at all — so when you ring from a car park like the one at Co-op Food, tell us how much space there is round you and which way round the vehicle is. Those we visit often. Should there be no room to work next to your diesel Peugeot 308, it gets rolled with the engine off, and not out of fussiness over a couple of seconds of running: priming happens at every start, more of the blend exits the tank for the pump, and two shunts into a better spot have silently made a bigger job of what was simply a vehicle sitting still.
Here's the whole process. Diesel needs enough body to seal the fine gaps it goes through, and petrol takes that away. That is it. Which accounts for the normal Chaddenwick Wood call — a diesel BMW 5 Series, out there without complaint and back down on power, uneven at idle, maybe a bit of smoke. Injection systems work hydraulically as well as chemically, so the fuel has to hold pressure and not just burn; weakened, it leaks past those tolerances and not building, and delivery comes weaker, later, less even than the engine was designed about. Not a failing engine, though. Fuel that has stopped acting like diesel. Put that right and it stops.
A motor 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 decides the amount of petrol getting to your injectors. Nothing careless about the mistake itself: a modern diesel filler neck accepts the slimmer petrol nozzle with practically no resistance, and so new places see most of these. Phone us from wherever you are, by Mere Museum or not, and we'll come to the Citroen C3.
A few streets, then it stopped. Throttle soft, idle ragged, and the diesel Kia Sportage is parked up near St Michael the Archangel. Your engine is not giving up — that sluggishness is fuel that won't build pressure. There's no light on the dash for it, and so cars like yours generally get driven once more before anybody picks up the phone. Do not. Off, then ring us.
Removing petrol from your diesel at a forecourt
Plenty of the work starts at a pump, meaning a large chunk of that ends up finished on site. The drain normally gets done on the spot. Still on the forecourt at Gulf? Given the site's consent, that is somewhere we work, and regularly.
The forecourt is the one setting it is spotted before the engine has run. The few seconds between checking your receipt and going for the keys settle how much needs rinsing. Everywhere other than a forecourt — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the vehicle was started and moved to get there, so fuel was drawn from your tank, through the fuel filter and into the high-pressure fuel pump. That means your lines and your filter require flushing as well as that tank. It is not a catastrophe, and our engineers can still deal with it where your car is.
The staff will usually help you push the vehicle away from the petrol pump so the next customer can get past. That's worth doing. Firing the car just to move four vehicle lengths isn't.
Places our team reach in Mere
Being a riverside town, Mere sees a routine visit, while the villages round about come along on the same run: Well Head and Ivy Mead, Southbrook and Towns End, Rook Street.
There are pages for nearly all towns in Wiltshire, and the ones mentioned above are just the closest neighbours — so yours being absent from the list means nothing at all about whether our engineers come. Guessing is the thing to skip, above all on a boundary or anywhere a satnav gets lost. Call us and ask.
Use this map for the ground shown on this page. Roadside, forecourt, private drive, car park: the lot is territory we work on, and none of it needs your car to move to us.
Kerbside call-outs around Mere
The opportunity to stop somewhere sensible does not fall to everybody. A normal call for us and not an odd one: worked out after setting off, ended up by the verge of The Square or in a lay-by with your hazards going.
Whether you wait with the motor or move away from it turns on whether being there is safe. It will frequently oblige. A diesel running on petrol limps along very willingly, and that's the catch: fire it up to reach somewhere safer and the blend goes further into your fuel system with every mile covered. However awkward the spot, it's no bother for us to get to it, and that's far better for your car than driving on.
A few miles on petrol in a diesel: what now?
Here is where your M4 matters, under 50 miles away from Mere. Some way along, and onto it in the first place: a misfilled diesel will often do both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is seldom a clean stop. Power drains away, the idle gets uneven, and there may be some smoke.
The next sensible junction is the one to take. Switch off there, then leave the restarting alone. Assume the worst of that on a long trip. Anything near the under 25 miles to the nearest city, and the petrol has been through your filter, through the pump, through the fuel injectors. Tell us when you phone. What our engineers bring alters.
Mere itself
Mere is a small town situated on the banks of the River Mere in Wiltshire, with a mix of old and new buildings, including many detached homes. Mere sits at an elevation of 106 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Well Head and Ivy Mead. Mere is located near the Somerset border, approximately 18 miles from Wells and 97 miles from London. Mere has a population of around 2808 people, living in a predominantly residential area with a strong sense of community.
What our technicians do when our technicians arrive with you around Mere
- We ask first, price after. What was put in? How much? Has your engine run? Those answers shape what the work actually is.
- Our engineers clear that tank of the tainted mixture.
- What is remaining in the fuel system should not be what created the problem, so the fuel lines get flushed and the filter cleaned.
- We pour clean diesel in and prime the fuel system.
- When it's fired up, our engineers make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel.
That leaves the car ready to pull away. Everything is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop, and when it has been noticed early, permanent damage is very uncommon.
AdBlue in the diesel tank instead, around Mere?
If what got in was AdBlue rather than petrol, the first instruction is unchanged — never crank it — but this fault isn't. Petrol weakens the diesel and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Urea in water, AdBlue, and in a diesel tank that causes corrosion and residue.
Both are ours. There's a separate Mere page for AdBlue removal, with the detail on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
Mere costs for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain
Our technicians cannot put one figure on this page honestly, as the job is not one job. What shifts it:
- Whether the motor has been started or driven. This is the key one.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel got into it.
- The sort of liquid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
- Where is it? And can a technician reach it and work there sensibly?
A clear answer instead of a range is what you get for telling us three things: the car, the amount, and whether it has run. For the car at home that is going nowhere and is not urgent, works too.
Petrol in diesel questions from Mere motorists
At a petrol station in Mere, can you do a fuel drain there?
Yes — forecourts are where a fair share of this gets done. Our engineers work at Esso and the other forecourts around town routinely, with the site's consent — tell us which one you are at when you phone and we'll tell you whether our technicians can work there.
How much petrol is too much for a diesel?
It rests on the ratio rather than the litres, and much more on whether your motor has run. Five litres into an almost dry tank isn't five into a full one, no. But both land on the same query in the end: has that mix been pulled right through, or has it not?
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. What next?
Turn off somewhere safe, and keep it that way after you stop. It is salvageable far more regularly than motorists fear, even though driving is what moves the trouble from that tank into your pump and injectors — and the single most helpful thing you can do now is not restart it.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
It isn't an alteration, and so a drain then flush carried out properly doesn't void a manufacturer's warranty. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a disagreement with one, which is another good reason to leave the car switched off.
Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home?
What petrol has thinned isn't replaced by two-stroke oil, which is an old remedy for a separate problem. So no. Later on? Still petrol in your tank, and a pump that has to put up with the stuff.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — necessary?
There's no need to take it to a franchised dealer, since our technicians drain and flush your car wherever it is.
You, and your vehicle, still together?
Your engine remains off.
If you have already driven the car, stop somewhere sensible, turn it off then leave it off. Cold, stationary, going nowhere: that's the best place to be in. People fear this a lot more than they need to.
Clearing misfuelled vehicles, Mere and the rest of Wiltshire, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.