Rhu: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With your tank still holding the petrol and the motor not yet run, almost every job requires only a drain, so keep your engine off. That outcome is determined in the minutes straight after the fill-up, and not by the amount that got in. All over Rhu and the remainder of Argyll and Bute, Petrol in Diesel drains the vehicle and flushes it where it is, whether by a roadside, on a driveway or at a forecourt. Our team shall explain what the next move is. Call us — it comes before anything else.
Petrol in a diesel: what to try now
- Feed a petrol engine diesel and it will generally refuse to run at all, so the person stops there and so does the wear. Give a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it ticks over, it drives off — all right for several miles. People have that muddled, which is the part they get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. So don't fire it up. And if started, do not trust it: that fuel system is wearing down whenever you drive.
- Two things, diesel: it burns, and on the way through it keeps your high-pressure pump and injectors greased. Petrol only does the one. Which is why the ignition remains off too — switch it on and you frequently prime your system, and that's petrol leaving your tank for just those components.
- Topping up removes nothing. It gives you a larger tank of the same blend, because a diesel fuel system doesn't handle petrol by percentage as that guidance presumes — so never tip diesel on top to water down it. Type is immaterial too: super unleaded is petrol.
- A vehicle that hasn't moved is the easiest one to sort out, so remain where you are if you safely can. Stopped on the verge on Church Road? Hazards on, then keep the car there. An odd place suits us better than a started motor.
- Before you call, have your whereabouts. Anything closest to you with a label on it, plus a postcode beginning G84 8 — that is what settles whether the van arrives or circles.
- Three facts shape the full call-out: the stuff you tipped in, the approximate quantity of it, and whether anything has been going since. Our line is 0333 366 0103.
The high-pressure pump spent that morning run running on a fuel that had shed a great deal of the protection it is made for. Diesel lubricates that pump, and your injectors with it, before any of the fuel ignites; petrol does the burning and none of the protecting. So imagine a diesel Volkswagen Tiguan, filled at quarter past eight, driven in to work, and left sitting at Helensburgh Upper until it dawns on you at about eleven. Three hours of standing have changed nothing about it. The couple of miles before that changed a good deal, which is why the thing our technicians ask is about miles instead of hours. Phone us. Leave the car right where it stands.
Shift the car out of the gateway and sort it out later — that is what someone will say, and it's wrong. Sitting on the zig-zags outside the local primary school, a wrongly fuelled diesel Peugeot 308 is an inconvenience and nothing worse. Fired up three more times for good manners, it's no longer a tank problem but a fuel system one, as priming occurs with every start and more petrol goes past the filter on to the pump. Let them grumble. Call us.
None of it is the motor failing. That's the bit worth hearing, and it's why the normal Kidston Park call ends better than it sounds: a diesel Audi A4 drives out there without complaint, comes back with the power gone, the idle lumpy and perhaps a little smoke, and the cause is the fuel no longer acting like diesel. Diesel has to be viscous enough to seal the precision parts it passes through; petrol thins it; and a diesel injection system is hydraulic as much as chemical, needing the fuel to hold pressure and not only to burn. So pressure that should build and stay built escapes past clearances, delivery arrives weaker and later and less even than designed, and all of that stops once your fuel is put right.
Ringing from close to War Memorial? Three things help us. The filler — which side of the vehicle it is on. Room for a technician next to you, without the road being blocked. And whether anything has run since the fill-up. The spot itself barely counts: on-street is where our technicians work most, and we'd much rather have a tight spot than a car someone has driven somewhere simpler. Then it's a drain for the Dacia Duster, a filter change where there's one worth changing, lines rinsed, fresh fuel put round the entire system. By now the worst of it is in the fuel lines and not your tank.
Hire car or company car? Phone them before you phone us — some contracts want the hire firm to authorise the work, and sorting that out first is a great deal faster than sorting it later. Then phone us about the Mercedes A-Class close to Rhu and Shandon Parish Church, and don't worry that you can't say how full your tank was. Almost no one can, in a vehicle they picked up two days ago, and our engineers work it out there. The reason we ask is that petrol in a diesel does its damage as a proportion: the same few litres in an almost empty tank is a far stronger blend than in a full one. Petrol is rated on how well it resists igniting under pressure, which is the opposite of what a diesel needs — so the stronger the blend, the more it knocks, smokes and goes flat.
At the forecourt: draining petrol from your diesel
Most of this job starts at a pump, meaning a fair share of that gets completed on site. Still at Esso? Then that's generally where it takes place. Petrol station forecourts are routine for us, with the agreement of the site.
Before the engine has run — a forecourt is the only spot this ends up stopped. Anywhere else — a car park, a drive, a lay-by — your car was started and moved to get there, which means fuel was sucked from the tank, through your filter and into the high-pressure fuel pump. That's not a calamity, and our technicians can still put it right where it is. It does mean the fuel lines and your filter need flushing as well as that tank, and that's settled by the few seconds between seeing the receipt and going for the key.
Push the car out of the way if the staff suggest it, and they generally will. The next customer gets by the pump, and that is worth doing. Shifting the car four bays does not merit firing the engine.
Will our engineers serve your end of Rhu?
Rhu is a coastal village, and so our vans get out to it and to anywhere near it on those same trips: Rosneath, Clynder, Stroul, Shandon and Helensburgh.
There are separate pages for most locations in Argyll and Bute, and the ones named above are simply the closest neighbours — so yours being left off that list tells you nothing about if our technicians come. Ring us to ask rather than presuming, especially if you are on a border or anywhere your satnav struggles with.
The area this page spans is on our map. Your vehicle does not need to move to us. Our technicians work throughout every bit of it — kerbside, forecourts, driveways, car parks.
Stopped at the kerbside anywhere in Rhu?
Not everyone has a suitable spot to pull over. A common call for us and not an unusual one: worked out after setting off, finished up along the verge beside Cumberland Road or at a lay-by with the hazards flashing.
Wait with the motor if it is safe to be inside, but out of it when it's not. Do not start up the motor to nurse it somewhere handier — a diesel running on petrol will frequently oblige, and every mile it obliges for is dragging the mix further into the system. However awkward the spot, it is no trouble for us to get to it, and that is much better for the car than driving on.
So you've run it? Petrol in a diesel over a couple of miles
The local M8 is the one that matters here, and runs under 15 miles from Rhu. A loss of power, an uneven idle, smoke: those are the symptoms when they come, instead of a neat stop — and a misfuelled diesel will often get you onto it and some way along before anything seems wrong at all.
Take the next junction that's sensible, stop there, and don't restart it to reposition. On a longer run — anything close to the under 25 miles to the nearest city — take it the petrol has been through your filter, your pump and the fuel injectors, and tell us when you call. It affects what our engineers bring.
Rhu itself
Rhu is a coastal village in Argyll and Bute, situated on the shores of the Gareloch at an elevation of around 15 metres. Rhu lies near the villages of Rosneath, Clynder, and Stroul, and is approximately 23 miles from Glasgow. Rhu has a population of around 1007 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Our call-out around Rhu, step by step
- The answers alter the work, which is why our engineers ask before giving a price: what got in, how much of that, and if the engine has run.
- Out goes the tainted mixture.
- Fuel lines are cleaned through and the filter cleaned, leaving nothing in your system that caused any of this.
- Clean diesel goes in, and then the fuel system gets primed.
- The engine is started and tested to be sure it runs correctly on new diesel.
That has it ready to set off. We do everything wherever the vehicle has come to a stop, which means it never needs to go to a garage, and if it has been noticed early, it's very uncommon for there to be permanent damage.
A distinct job: AdBlue in a diesel tank around Rhu
Never crank it: that first step applies whether what was put in was AdBlue or petrol. What changes is this fault itself. Petrol weakens your diesel and strips the lubrication the system relies on. AdBlue is urea in water, and in a diesel tank it causes rust and residue instead.
AdBlue removal in Rhu has a page of its own with the full story on it, including why it is often the more significant of the two. We deal with both.
Paying for a petrol-in-diesel drain in Rhu
One figure wouldn't be fair here, as this is not one job. These are the things that move it:
- Whether your motor has been started or driven. This is the key one.
- Wrong fuel in, against what the tank takes — that proportion.
- Whether it's unleaded or AdBlue.
- Whether a van can sensibly reach the car and work on it, which rests on where your vehicle is.
Tell us the car, the amount and whether it has run, and you will get a clear answer rather than a range. For the vehicle at home that's going nowhere and isn't pressing, is fine too.
Rhu motorists ask us these about petrol in diesel
At a petrol station around Rhu, can you do a fuel drain there?
Yes, and it is where a large part of this work takes place. Regularly, provided the site agrees: Shell, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where precisely you have stopped. Whether our engineers can work in that location is something our technicians answer straight away.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Litres aren't the yardstick. Proportion is, and far more than either, it matters whether 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 decides how much work is needed is if that mix has been sucked through the fuel system.
Petrol in my diesel, and I have driven the car
Switch off somewhere safe, and keep it that way after you stop. It is recoverable far more commonly than motorists assume, even though driving is what shifts the trouble from that tank into your pump and injectors — and the single most useful thing you can do now is not restart it.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
A manufacturer's warranty withstands a drain and flush done to a proper standard, which is no change at all. Another reason to leave it turned off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a disagreement with one.
Two-stroke oil in that tank, and then home?
What petrol has weakened isn't replaced by two-stroke oil, which is an old workaround for a distinct problem. So no. Petrol stays in that tank afterwards, whatever else goes in, and your pump gets no reprieve from it.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
Wherever the vehicle is, our engineers drain and clean it there, so a visit to the main dealer doesn't come into it.
Waiting next to it?
Keep it switched off.
Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, switch off, and no restarting it afterwards. A still, cold car is the best position to be in, and this is recoverable from far more often than motorists fear.
At the roadside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining around Rhu and throughout Argyll and Bute.