Porterfield: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With that tank still holding the petrol and the engine not yet run, nearly every job requires only a drain, so keep the engine off. That result is decided in the minutes immediately after the fill-up, and not by the amount that got in. All over Porterfield and the rest of Renfrewshire, Petrol in Diesel drains the vehicle and cleans it where it stands, whether by a roadside, on a drive or at a forecourt. Contact us and then we can explain what follows after that before you do any more.
The first five steps: petrol in a diesel
- Do not start the vehicle — and do not believe it when it does start. Here is the part most people get wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. A petrol motor given diesel generally just can't run, so the person stops and the harm stops with them. A diesel given petrol typically starts, idles and moves off quite happily for several miles. It isn't okay. It's wearing the fuel system while you drive.
- Turning your ignition on usually primes that system, and priming is what draws petrol out of the tank and into your pump and injectors. Those are the parts diesel keeps protected on its way through, before it combusts. Petrol handles the burning and none of the oiling. Leave the ignition off.
- That guidance assumes a diesel fuel system handles petrol by percentage. It does not. Put diesel on top and nothing at all is taken out; what you get is a larger tank of the same blend. And no, the type makes no difference — super unleaded is still petrol.
- Wait where you are if you reasonably can. A motor that has never moved is the simplest one to sort out, and we would rather travel to an odd place than have it started. If you're parked on the verge on Knockhill Road, turn the hazards on and keep the car there.
- Our van arriving rather than circling turns on two things: a postcode starting PA4 8, and whatever is next to you with a name on it. Keep both prepared before you call.
- Three details decide the full call-out: the fuel you tipped in, the ballpark measure of it, and whether it has been turning since. Our number is 0333 366 0103.
Can petrol be taken from a diesel at the forecourt?
Much of the work begins at the pump, so a big chunk of that gets finished there. The drain typically gets done there and then. Still on the forecourt at Shell? Given the owner's agreement, that is a place we work, and routinely.
At the forecourt, the mistake gets spotted with your motor never started, and nowhere else manages it. We can still put it right where it is, even away from the forecourt. In a car park, on a drive or in a lay-by, the car has been switched on and driven there, and that pulled fuel through your filter then into your high-pressure pump, all the way from the tank. None of that is a disaster, although the flush then has to reach past your tank to the lines and the fuel filter, and the few seconds between checking your receipt and going for the keys are what settle that.
Staff will generally chip in pushing it clear of the pump, which lets the next driver get through. Welcome the help. Firing the car over four vehicle lengths? Never.
Porterfield plus the villages near it
Moorpark, Victory Gardens, Newmains, Loanhead, Gallowhill — each of these on the rounds that bring us out to Porterfield too, a small village.
There are separate pages for the majority of locations across Renfrewshire, and the ones mentioned above are simply the immediate neighbours — so yours being absent from that list says nothing at all about whether our technicians come. On a border, or somewhere your phone gets wrong? Ring us to check rather than guessing.
The map shows the area the page spans. Roadside, forecourt, private drive, car park: the lot is ground we cover, and none of it needs your car to travel to us.
Someone will tell you to shift it out of that gateway and sort it out later. Do not. A misfilled diesel Peugeot 308 on the zig-zags at the local primary school is a hassle; the same motor restarted three more times to be helpful is a fuel system and not a tank. Each restart primes the fuel lines and draws more petrol past your filter and into the pump. Leave it there, let them moan, then ring us.
The parts that should be getting protected are grinding instead, and your car gives no sign of it: a diesel on a diluted tank fires up and pulls away quite happily. Risk the drive home from The Flying Scotsman? No. Phone and leave the Ford Focus where it stands.
Pull over somewhere sensible, turn off and call us. Happy on the way out to Knockhill Park, sluggish on the way back? Then look at your tank. Petrol thins diesel; thinner fuel leaks past the close-fitting parts that build injection pressure; and the farther the diesel Dacia Duster went, the less of that pressure it held.
About as well as this goes, once the engine has turned: away from the pumps, receipt read, and the diesel BMW 5 Series parked close to Renfrew Leisure Centre scarcely two streets on. Ring us, then leave it off. A short hop does truly help. It was still a start and still a drive, though, and so your filter and the pump have had thinned fuel through them — hence rinsing the fuel lines rather than only emptying your tank.
What occurs next is the issue. The motor at once sucks the petrol still resting in the filter and the feed lines back round through your pump a second time, as emptying a tank does nothing about fuel that has already left it. Drain it and put clean diesel in, somebody certain will tell you — and that advice is only half right, as do it to a diesel Audi Q5 parked up, St Columba say, and the thing starts, which is what makes it sound reasonable. Call us instead. We flush the system and take the fuel filter off where the car has a working one, and that's the difference between your car being repaired and the car just starting.
Porterfield: stuck wherever you stopped
Not everybody has a decent spot to pull in. Hazards flashing at a lay-by somewhere, or pulled onto the verge on Birmingham Road as you worked it out after setting off — we take that call regularly enough that it is the normal kind.
Sit by the car when it's safe to wait in it, but out of the car when it is not. Never start it up to reach a nicer place. It will go — a diesel on petrol normally obliges — and each mile of obliging drags the mix deeper into your fuel system. Driving on does your car far more harm than a van driving out to a difficult location, and that is no trouble for us.
Driven it already? Pull in, then read this
Your M8 is the one that matters here, and it sits under a mile from Porterfield. Some way along, and onto it in the first place: a wrongly fuelled diesel will often do both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is seldom a tidy stop. Power drains away, the idle turns uneven, and there may be some smoke.
Never restart it to reposition. Get off at the next safe junction then turn off. It affects what we bring, so mention it when you ring: on a longer trip — anything approaching the under 10 miles to the closest city — assume the petrol has been through your filter, your pump and your injectors.
A bit about Porterfield
Porterfield is a riverside locality in Renfrewshire, situated near the city of Glasgow. Porterfield has a relatively low elevation of 9 metres and is located close to other nearby places such as Moorpark and Victory Gardens. Porterfield is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing, which is common in many urban areas of Scotland. Porterfield is approximately 348 miles from London, but its proximity to Glasgow makes it a more locally connected community.
What our technicians do when our technicians get to you around Porterfield
- Our technicians check what went in, how much, and whether the engine has run. The responses alter the work, which is why our technicians ask before quoting.
- The tainted fuel is drawn out of your tank.
- Fuel lines are flushed through and the fuel filter cleaned, leaving nothing in the system that caused any of this.
- Our engineers put clean diesel in and prime the system.
- Once it's fired up, our engineers check it runs correctly on clean diesel.
That has your car ready to set off. We do all of this wherever the vehicle has stopped, which means it never needs to be taken to a garage, and if it has been spotted soon, it's very rare for there to be permanent damage.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Porterfield is a different problem
If what got in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the first instruction is unchanged — don't fire it up — yet the issue is not. The lubrication a fuel system relies on is taken away by petrol, which thins the diesel. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Tip that in with the diesel and you get rust instead, plus deposits.
Both are ours. There is a separate Porterfield page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
What a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain costs around Porterfield
One number wouldn't be honest here, since this isn't one job. These are the things that shift it:
- Whether your engine has been started or driven. This is the big one.
- The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel got into it.
- AdBlue or petrol, whichever was put in.
- Where the vehicle is, and whether a technician can safely get to and work on it.
The car, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back straight and not as a range. If it's not pressing — the vehicle is at home and going nowhere — works too.
Porterfield motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
I'm on a forecourt in Porterfield. Can you drain it on the spot?
Yes — forecourts are where a large part of this gets done. Tell us which one you are at when you call and we will tell you whether our engineers can work there. With the owner's permission we visit Esso and the other forecourts locally regularly.
A couple of litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
Litres are not the measure. Ratio is, and far more than either, it matters if anything has been run. Five litres into a nearly dry tank isn't five into a full one, no. But both land on the same query in the end: has that mix been sucked right through, or has it not?
I drove it after putting petrol in my diesel. What next?
Somewhere sensible, then stop, then turn off and leave it off. Driving takes the trouble along — out of your tank, into your pump and injectors. People fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one really helpful thing left to you is not restarting the car.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
It's not an alteration, so a drain and flush carried out properly doesn't cancel a manufacturer's warranty. A dispute 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?
Two-stroke oil solves a different issue, and an old one at that. Nothing it does puts back what petrol weakened. No. Your pump still has to live with it, as the tank still has petrol in it later on.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
You do not need one. The vehicle is drained and cleaned wherever it is, with no need to take it to a franchised dealer.
Is your vehicle still with you?
Do not switch it back on.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, switch off, and no restarting it later. Cold, stationary, going nowhere: that is the best place to be in. People fear this much more than they need to.
Draining misfilled motors, Porterfield and the rest of Renfrewshire, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.