Ravensdale: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With your tank still holding the fuel and the engine not yet run, nearly every job requires only a drain, so keep the motor off. That outcome is decided in the minutes immediately after filling up, and not by the amount that was put in. Across Ravensdale and the remainder of Nottinghamshire, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and cleans it where it sits, whether by a roadside, on a driveway or at a forecourt. One call our way is plenty: our team can explain what comes next. Make that first.
The first five minutes: petrol in a diesel
- Feed a petrol engine diesel and it will typically fail to run at all, and so the motorist stops there and so does the damage. Feed a diesel petrol and the thing starts, it idles, it pulls away — all right for several miles. People have that muddled, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. So never start the vehicle. And if started, don't trust it: your fuel system is grinding as you drive.
- Turning the car's ignition on often primes the system, and priming is what moves petrol out of that tank and into your pump and injectors. Those are the components diesel keeps greased on its way through, before it ignites. Petrol manages the burning and none of the lubricating. Leave the car's ignition be.
- Don't dilute it. Diesel put on top takes out nothing, and so all you have is more of what was already there, because percentage is not how a diesel fuel system copes with petrol. Super unleaded? Still petrol. The type makes no difference.
- We would sooner travel to a tricky location than have it started — so if you reasonably can, stay still. Nothing is quicker to handle than a vehicle that has never shifted. On the verge on Alcock Avenue, that means hazards on then leave it.
- A van arriving rather than circling hinges on two things: a postcode starting NG18 2, and whatever is closest to you with a name on it. Have both prepared before you call.
- Call 0333 366 0103. Let us know what was put in, roughly how much, and also whether the car has fired. Those three replies settle the entire visit.
On a forecourt: draining petrol from your diesel
A big chunk of the job gets completed at a pump, since that's where it mostly begins. The drain normally gets done there and then. Still on the forecourt at Asda? Given the owner's consent, that is somewhere our technicians work, and regularly.
At a forecourt, the mistake gets caught with your engine never run, and no place else does that. Fuel sucked out of that tank and through the fuel filter, all the way to your high-pressure pump, is what occurs when your engine is fired up and your car is moved to where it is now: the car park, the private drive or the lay-by, everywhere other than the forecourt. So the flush takes in the filter and the fuel lines together with your tank. That is still not a catastrophe, and our engineers sort it out where your car sits. What decides it is whether the key was turned in the seconds after your receipt was read.
Attendants will usually pitch in pushing it out from the pump, which lets the next customer get through. Welcome the assistance. Four vehicle lengths isn't worth the risk.
Petrol in your Volkswagen Passat, and it takes diesel? Shopping in your boot, you at Asda, somewhere around Ravensdale? Then call us, and leave your engine out of that — not even to leave that bay. Somebody comes to you. Tank drained, fuel lines rinsed, clean diesel in, and home you go. Easy throttle over a mile uses little, so these are usually the straightforward ones.
How far, and how hard? The second of those counts more than the first, and so have both ready. The Skoda Octavia will have seemed completely usual on the way back from Abbey Primary School — they all do, and that is the snag. Diesel into a petrol motor generally will not run at all: the driver stops, and so does the wear. Petrol into a diesel starts, ticks over, pulls away like nothing happened, whilst the high-pressure pump gets on with its work minus the protection the fuel should be giving it. No warning appears, as behind the wheel nothing appears wrong.
Here is the entire mechanism. Diesel needs enough body to seal the tight clearances it goes through, and petrol takes that away. That is it. Which explains the usual Maun Valley Nature Reserve call — a diesel Nissan Qashqai, out there without complaint and back down on power, lumpy at idle, perhaps a bit of smoke. Injection systems work hydraulically as well as chemically, and so the fuel has to hold pressure and not just burn; weakened, it escapes past those clearances rather than building, and delivery comes weaker, later, less even than the engine was built round. Not a failing engine, though. Fuel that has stopped acting like diesel. Put that right and it stops.
Phoning from near Saint Lawrences Church? Three things help us. The filler — which side of the vehicle it is on. Room for a technician alongside you, without the road being blocked. And if anything has run since the fill-up. The location itself hardly matters: on-street is where our engineers work most, and we'd far rather have a narrow spot than a motor somebody has driven somewhere quicker. Then it's a drain for the Audi A4, a filter change where there is one worth changing, lines flushed, clean fuel put round the entire circuit. By now the worst of that is in the lines and not that tank.
Knocking? Lumpy idle? White smoke, throttle gone soft? That is your misfuelled Vauxhall Astra, a diesel, saying what is wrong with it. Stop wherever you happen to be, maybe by St Lawrence Church Hall, and leave the restarting alone.
Ravensdale plus the areas next to it
As a residential suburb, Ravensdale has a routine visit, whilst the places round about come with it on that same round: The Park and Forest Town, Mansfield and Newton Town, Mansfield Woodhouse.
If yours is not on this list it doesn't mean we do not come — there are pages for most towns around Nottinghamshire, and the ones named above are just the closest neighbours. Phone and check instead of presuming — boundaries above all, and wherever your phone tends to misread.
Look at this map for the ground covered here. We work roadside, at forecourts, on driveways and at car parks over all of that, and the vehicle never needs to travel to us.
Roadside breakdowns across Ravensdale
The opportunity to pull over anywhere sensible doesn't fall to everybody. Set off, then realised? Ended up by the verge on Ravensdale Road, or stuck in some lay-by with the hazards going? That's a common call here. Not an unusual one.
Okay right there? Stay with it. Not okay? Move out and away from it. Do not restart it to reach a safer spot. It will go — a diesel on petrol usually obliges — and each mile of obliging pulls the mix deeper into your fuel system. However inconvenient the spot, it's no problem for us to come to it, and that is a lot better for the vehicle than pressing on.
Petrol in a diesel, and the car has rolled
This is where the local M1 comes into it — under 10 miles away from Ravensdale. A loss of power, a rough idle, smoke: those are the signs when they arrive, rather than a tidy stop — and a misfilled diesel will often get you onto it and some distance along before anything feels wrong at all.
Come off at the first sensible junction, turn off, and never restart the vehicle to reposition. Long drive? Anything near the under 15 miles to the closest city and you should assume the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of it reached by the petrol. Say that on the call, since it alters what goes in our van.
A bit about Ravensdale
Ravensdale is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Nottinghamshire, with an elevation of around 124 metres. Ravensdale lies approximately 13 miles from Nottingham and 121 miles from London, making it a commuter-friendly location. Ravensdale is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which is home to a population of around 6000 residents. Ravensdale is near other local places such as The Park, Forest Town, and Mansfield.
The job in Ravensdale, step by step
- Three things get asked before any price — your fuel that got in, the quantity, and if anything has been run since. Each answer changes the work.
- Our engineers drain that tank of the contaminated fuel.
- Lines cleaned, filter cleaned. Whatever is left later is not the thing that created the trouble.
- Your system gets primed, on fresh diesel.
- It's fired up with fresh diesel in it, and our technicians make sure that it's running correctly.
At that point it's ready to pull away. There's no need to go to a garage at any point, because the work is all done where the vehicle is, and when it is noticed early, lasting damage is very uncommon.
Ravensdale AdBlue removal is a distinct matter
Never start it: that first rule stands whether what was put in was AdBlue or petrol. What changes is the issue itself. Petrol dilutes your diesel and removes the protection the system depends on. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Pour that in with your diesel and you get corrosion instead, plus deposits.
Both are ours. There's a separate Ravensdale page for AdBlue removal, with the full story on it — including the reasons it frequently turns out to be the worse of the two.
Ravensdale prices for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain
One figure wouldn't be fair here, since this isn't one job. These are the things that move it:
- Started? Driven? Either answer matters more than anything else on this list.
- How much of the wrong fuel went in, against how much the tank takes.
- Whether it's unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where your car is, and whether a van can sensibly get to and work on it.
A straight answer rather than a range is what you get for telling us three things: your car, the amount, and whether it has run. Not time-critical, with your car at home and going nowhere? Then works.
Ravensdale motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station around Ravensdale?
Yes, and it's where a fair part of this work gets done. Routinely, provided the site consents: Essar, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where exactly you have stopped. Whether our engineers can work in that location is something our technicians answer straight away.
A couple of litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
Whether your motor has run matters far more, though the proportion matters too, instead of the litres. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a distinct matter from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that decides how much work is needed is if that blend has been pulled through the fuel system.
Already driven it with petrol in your diesel? Now what?
Switch off somewhere safe, and keep it that way after you stop. It is fixable far more commonly than people fear, even though driving is what shifts the trouble from that tank into the pump and injectors — and the single most helpful thing you can do now isn't restart it.
Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties
No. Carried out properly, emptying and purging is no modification at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is unaffected by it. What is likelier to start an argument is a diesel that has been run on petrol. One more reason for your engine to stay off.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. Two-stroke oil is an old workaround for a different issue and it doesn't replace what petrol has diluted. 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 — needed?
Wherever your car is, our engineers drain and clean it there, so a drive to the main dealer doesn't come into it.
You, and the car, still together?
Don't turn it on again.
Already driven it? Then pull over somewhere safe, turn off, and let the vehicle remain that way. This is recoverable from much more regularly than drivers fear, and a parked, cold vehicle is the best place to be in.
Emptying wrongly fuelled motors, Ravensdale and the rest of Nottinghamshire, wherever they are. Kerbside. Forecourt. Home.