Mid Calder: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With your tank still holding the petrol and your engine not yet run, almost every job requires only a drain, so leave the engine off. That result is determined in the minutes straight after filling up, and not by the amount that was put in. Across Mid Calder and the remainder of West Lothian, Petrol in Diesel drains your car and cleans it where it stands, whether by a roadside, on a drive or at a forecourt. Call us before anything else begins, so you will see what happens after that.
The next five steps: petrol in a diesel
- Give a petrol engine diesel and it will usually fail to run at all, and so the motorist stops there and so does the wear. Feed a diesel petrol and the car starts, it idles, it pulls away — all right for a few miles. People have that backwards, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. So don't crank it. And once started, never rely on it: that fuel system is wearing down while you drive.
- Two jobs, diesel: it ignites, 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 remains off as well — turn it on and you frequently prime that system, and that's petrol exiting your tank for just those parts.
- That advice presumes a diesel fuel system copes with petrol by percentage. It will not. Tip diesel on top and nothing at all is taken out; what you end with is a fuller tank of the same mixture. And no, the octane makes no difference — super unleaded is still petrol.
- Our team would much rather get to an awkward location than have it started — so if you reasonably can, stay put. Nothing is simpler to sort out than a vehicle that hasn't moved. On the verge on Main Street, that means hazards on then leave the vehicle.
- Find out where you are before calling. A postcode beginning EH53 0, and the name of whatever is closest to you. Otherwise the technician circles instead of showing up.
- Three facts determine the entire visit: the liquid you put in, the rough amount of it, and whether anything has been going since. Our line is 0333 366 0103.
Can petrol be pumped out of your diesel at the forecourt?
Pumps are where the job usually begins, and where a good chunk of that ends. Still at Shell? Then that is normally where it takes place. Station forecourts are everyday for us, with the permission of the site.
A filling station is the only location it gets spotted before the motor has started. Anywhere else — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the vehicle was started and moved to get there, which means fuel was drawn from that tank, through the fuel filter and into the high-pressure pump. That is not a catastrophe, and we can still deal with it where it is. It does mean the fuel lines and the fuel filter need rinsing as well as that tank, and that is settled by the few seconds between checking the receipt and going for the keys.
Staff will normally help out pushing it clear of the pump, which lets the next motorist get by. Accept the help. Moving it four spaces doesn't merit cranking the engine.
If you've put petrol in the diesel Peugeot 308 around Mid Calder and you are now sat outside Bratek Polish Food Shop with a boot packed with shopping, phone. Do not fire it up once more to exit the space. Our technicians will come to you, empty that tank, clean your fuel lines and put clean diesel in so you can get home. A mile or so at light throttle draws hardly any diesel, so those are often the easy cases.
Your diesel BMW 5 Series will have felt entirely ordinary on the way back from the local primary school. They all do, and that is the trap with petrol in a diesel instead of the other way round. Put diesel in a petrol car and it generally will not run, so the driver stops and the damage stops with them. Put petrol in a diesel and it starts, ticks over and moves off as though nothing has happened — all while the high-pressure pump works without the protection the fuel is supposed to be giving. Nothing tells you, because from behind the wheel there's nothing to warn you about. Phone us with about how far you went and how hard you pushed it; the second answer matters more than the first.
This is what a job in the car park by Black Bull typically looks like. Our technicians reach the vehicle, ask what was put in, approximately how much, and whether the motor has run since — these three replies settle much of the work. Then the contaminated mix comes out of that tank, your lines get rinsed, and the fuel filter comes off where your Vauxhall Astra has a serviceable one. New diesel goes in and your system is bled. Then our technicians fire it up, check it runs properly, and you set off.
Phoning from near Mid Calder Institute and Community Centre? Three things help us. The filler — which side of the car it is on. Room for a van next to you, without the road being blocked. And whether anything has run since the fill-up. The place itself scarcely counts: on-street is where our technicians work most, and we would much rather have a tight spot than a vehicle somebody has driven somewhere quicker. Then it is a drain for the Mercedes A-Class, a filter change where there's one worth changing, lines purged, clean fuel put round the entire system. By now the worst of it is in the fuel lines and not that tank.
Fixed and starting are not the same thing, and the difference is your circuit: we flush it, and take the fuel filter off where there is a working one. Compare that with the certain advice you will get — drain the car, refill with fresh diesel. Half true. Do exactly that to a diesel Volkswagen Polo by Glenalmond Hall and it will start, which is exactly why the tip sounds plausible. Then the engine draws the petrol left behind in your filter, and in the feed lines, straight back through the pump, because draining a tank does nothing whatever about fuel that has already left it. Ring us instead.
Places we reach in Mid Calder
Mid Calder is a residential suburb, so our technicians go out to the town and to anywhere near it on the usual runs: Oakbank, Calderhall, Craigshill, East Calder and Langton.
Our engineers still come. The places above are merely the nearest neighbours, and a page is there for nearly all places around West Lothian, and so an absence from the list isn't an absence from our coverage. Presuming is the thing to skip, particularly on the border or somewhere your satnav fails. Ring us and check.
The map is the ground the page covers. Roadside, forecourt, drive, car park: all of that is ground our technicians serve, and none of that requires your car to come to us.
Mid Calder: broken down wherever you pulled up
Not everyone gets a decent place to pull over. If you realised after setting off and landed along the verge beside Bank Street, or in a lay-by somewhere with the hazard lights on, that is a common call for us rather than an odd one.
Sit with the motor when it's safe to sit there, yet clear of it if it is not. Do not fire it up to get to a better location. It will go — a diesel on petrol normally obliges — and each mile of obliging draws the mix deeper into your fuel system. Pressing on does the vehicle far more harm than a van driving out to a tricky location, and that's no trouble for us.
Petrol in a diesel, but the car has moved
The local M8 is the one which matters now, and runs under 3 miles from Mid Calder. Lost power, a lumpy idle, smoke: those are the signs when they come, rather than a neat stop — and a wrongly fuelled diesel will usually take you onto it and some way along before anything feels wrong at all.
Come off at the next safe exit, switch off, and do not start it to reposition. It affects what we bring, and so tell us when you call: on a longer trip — anything close to the under 15 miles to the nearest city — take it the mixture has been through the fuel filter, your pump and your injectors.
Where's Mid Calder?
Mid Calder is a suburban area situated on the banks of the River Almond in West Lothian, with a mix of detached housing and local amenities. Mid Calder sits at an elevation of 108 metres, approximately 12 miles west of Edinburgh, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Oakbank and Calderhall. Mid Calder has a population of around 1217 residents, living in a predominantly detached housing stock. Mid Calder is located near the larger town of Livingston, with Craigshill also in the vicinity.
Our job around Mid Calder, step by step
- Our technicians check what got in, how much, and whether the motor has run. The answers change the work, which is why our engineers ask before pricing.
- Out comes the contaminated fuel.
- Fuel lines are rinsed through and your filter cleaned, leaving nothing in the fuel system that caused any of this.
- Bleeding your system follows, once clean diesel is in.
- After it is turned on, our engineers make sure it runs smoothly on fresh diesel.
Your car is then ready for you to pull away. Everything is done where the car is, so it never has to go to a garage, and when it has been spotted early, permanent damage is very rare.
Mid Calder AdBlue removal is a distinct job
AdBlue rather than petrol? Then the opening instruction is unchanged — the engine stays off — while this issue under it is a different one altogether. Thinned diesel, and no protection left for the system that relies on it. That's petrol. Rust and residue are what a diesel tank ends up with instead, because AdBlue is urea dissolved in water.
AdBlue removal in Mid Calder has a page of its own with the detail on it, including why it is frequently the more significant of the two. Our technicians deal with both.
Mid Calder prices for a petrol-in-diesel drain
Our engineers can't put one price on this page honestly, as this job isn't one job. What changes it:
- Whether the motor has been run or driven. This is the key one.
- Wrong fuel in, against what the tank holds — that ratio.
- The sort of fluid in the tank, petrol or AdBlue.
- Access: the car's position, and if working on it there's safe for our van.
A firm answer rather than a range is what you get for telling us three things: the vehicle, the quantity, and if it has run. Car at home, going nowhere, nothing urgent about it — is ideal for that.
Petrol in diesel questions from Mid Calder drivers
Fuel drains on a Mid Calder petrol station forecourt
Yes — forecourts are where a big share of this happens. Tell us which one you are at when you phone and we will tell you whether our engineers can work there. With the site's consent we work at Asda and the other forecourts around town all the time.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Whether your engine has run matters a lot more, though the ratio matters too, instead of the litres. Five litres into an almost dry tank is not 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 put petrol in my diesel and drove the car. What next?
Somewhere sensible, then stop, then turn off and leave it off. It's recoverable far more regularly than people assume, even though driving is what takes the problem from your tank into the pump and injectors — and the single most useful thing you can do now is not restart it.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
No. Carried out properly, draining and flushing is no change at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is untouched 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 that tank, and then home?
No. It belongs to a separate issue from a bygone era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind puts back. Your pump still has to live with it, because your tank still has petrol in it later.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
There's no need to bring it to a dealership, as our engineers drain and clean the car wherever it is.
You, and the car, still together?
Do not switch your engine back on.
If you have already driven the car, pull in somewhere sensible, switch it off and keep it off. A parked, cold motor is the best place to be in, and this is recoverable from much more often than people expect.
Clearing wrongly fuelled motors, Mid Calder and the rest of West Lothian, wherever they are. Kerbside. Forecourt. Home.