--- title: Fuel Drain in Rickards Down — Petrol in a Diesel Car canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/petrol-in-diesel/rickards-down-devon/ location: Rickards Down county: Devon latitude: 51.025240 longitude: -4.247210 service: Petrol in a Diesel Car updated: 2026-10-02 --- # Rickards Down: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car? Do not turn on the engine. If the fuel is still sitting in your tank and the engine has not run, a tank drain is nearly always all it requires — and that's settled in the following few minutes, not by how much went in. Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans wrong-fuelled vehicles where they sit, across Rickards Down and the rest of Devon, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a driveway. Phone and then our technicians will show you what happens next before you do much else. ## The first five steps: petrol in a diesel - Never start the car. Started regardless? Then never believe it. Diesel in a petrol motor usually can't run, and so the person stops and the wear stops with them. Petrol in a diesel? It starts. It ticks over. It pulls away normally, for a couple of miles. Most people get that confused. It's not fine — the fuel system is wearing down every mile you drive. - Diesel combusts, and before it burns it lubricates — your high-pressure pump, those injectors. Petrol handles only the burning. So leave the car's ignition alone also: switching it on is usually sufficient to prime the system, and priming draws petrol from that tank into just those parts. - That guidance supposes a diesel fuel system copes with petrol by percentage. It doesn't. Tip diesel on top and nothing at all is cleared; what you end with is a bigger tank of the same mixture. And no, the grade makes no difference — super unleaded is simply petrol. - A vehicle that has never shifted is the simplest one to sort out, so remain where you are if you reasonably can. Stopped on the verge on North Down Road? Hazards on, then leave the vehicle there. An awkward location works for us better than a started motor. - A van showing up instead of circling turns on two things: a postcode that starts EX39 5, and whatever is next to you with a label on it. Keep both ready before you phone. - Call 0333 366 0103. Tell us what got in, about how much, and also if your car has fired. Those three replies shape the full visit. Your high-pressure pump did that morning run working on a fuel that had lost much of the protection it is made for. Diesel protects that pump, and the fuel injectors with it, before any of your fuel ignites; petrol does the burning and none of the protecting. So take a diesel Volkswagen Golf, topped up at quarter past eight, driven in to work, and left sitting outside Barnstaple until it dawns on you at about eleven. Three hours of standing have changed nothing about it. The couple of miles before that did a good deal, which is why the question our engineers put to you is about mileage not time. Ring us. Keep it right where it is. ## Can petrol be pumped out of your diesel on the forecourt? A fair chunk of this work is completed at a forecourt, as that is where it mostly starts. We work on petrol station forecourts routinely, with the owner's agreement, and so if you are still at Asda that's typically where the drain happens. Nowhere else other than the forecourt can the mistake be caught with your engine still unrun. Everywhere else — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — your car was switched on and driven to get there, which means fuel was drawn from your tank, through the filter and into the high-pressure pump. That is not a catastrophe, and we can still put it right where it sits. It does mean the lines and your filter need cleaning as well as your tank, and that's determined by the few seconds between checking the receipt and reaching for the keys. Staff will normally pitch in pushing it out from the petrol pump, which lets the next customer get past. Take the offer. Shifting it four lengths does not merit firing the engine. ## Will our engineers serve your side of Rickards Down? Abbotsham, Buckleigh, Silford, Westward Ho!, Raleigh Estate — each of them on our trips that take us out to Rickards Down too, a coastal area. Not on this list? It tells you nothing. The names above are simply the nearest few, and most places around Devon have a page of their own somewhere on the site. Phone to check rather than guessing — county lines above all, and anywhere the satnav may struggle with. That map outlines the patch the page covers. Every bit of it is ground our technicians cover: a kerbside, a forecourt, a driveway, a car park. You do not move the vehicle anywhere. You will be advised to move the car clear of the gateway and sort it out later. Don't. On the zig-zags at St Helen's Church of England School, a misfilled Nissan Qashqai running on diesel is in the way, and that's all it is. Fire it up three more times being helpful and you have turned a tank into a fuel system: every start primes the lines, every prime draws more petrol through the filter on to your pump. Let them grumble. Ring us. ## Stuck at the kerb somewhere around Rickards Down? Not everybody has the chance to pull over anywhere sensible. Set off, then noticed? Finished up on the verge beside Pusehill Road, or parked in some lay-by with the hazards flashing? That is a routine call here. Not a rare one. Clear of your car while it's not wise to wait there, with it if it is. Do not fire it up to get to a safer location. It'll go — a diesel on petrol generally obliges — and each mile of obliging pulls the mix deeper into the fuel system. However tricky the location, it's no bother for us to come to it, and that is a lot better for the car than carrying on. ## Petrol in a diesel, but your car has rolled The M5 is the road which matters now, and sits under 50 miles from Rickards Down. A wrongly fuelled diesel will frequently take you onto it and some way along before anything seems wrong, while the signs when they appear are normally lost power, a rough idle and some smoke rather than a tidy stop. Take the next junction that's sensible, stop there, and don't restart it to reposition. It affects what our technicians bring, so tell us when you call: on a longer run — anything close to the under 50 miles to the closest city — assume the petrol has been through the filter, your pump and your injectors. ## All about Rickards Down Rickards Down is a coastal locality in Devon, situated near the towns of Abbotsham and Buckleigh, with Silford also nearby. Rickards Down has a population of around 519 people and is characterised by detached housing. Rickards Down sits at an elevation of 34 metres, close to the sea, and is approximately 37.5 miles from Exeter. Rickards Down is located in the South West region, about 181.2 miles from London. ## The visit around Rickards Down, step by step - Three things get established before any quote — the fuel that went in, the quantity, and whether anything has been run since. Each answer shapes the work. - Our technicians drain the tank of all the polluted fuel. - Lines purged, filter cleaned. Whatever is left later is not the thing that started the issue. - We pour fresh diesel in and prime your system. - The motor is fired up and checked to confirm it runs correctly on fresh diesel. Then it's ready to pull away. We do all of it wherever your car has stopped, which means it never has to be taken to a workshop, and if it has been caught quickly, it's very unusual for there to be long-term damage. Phoning from close to The Ultimate High? Three things help us. The filler — which side of the car it is on. Room for our van alongside you, without the road being blocked. And if anything has run since the fill-up. The spot itself barely counts: on-street is where we work most, and we'd much rather have a tight spot than a vehicle somebody has driven somewhere quicker. Then it is a drain for the BMW 5 Series, a filter change where there's one worth changing, lines rinsed, fresh fuel put round the entire circuit. By now the worst of it is in the fuel lines and not that tank. ## AdBlue in a diesel tank around Rickards Down is a different matter If what was put in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the opening rule is unchanged — don't start the car — yet the issue is not. Petrol does two things to diesel: weakens it, and takes away the lubrication the fuel system relies on. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water, and in a diesel tank it causes rust and build-up instead. Our engineers handle both, and AdBlue removal in Rickards Down has its own page with the details — including why it is often the more significant of the two. Petrol in a diesel does its harm as a ratio, which is the reason we ask at all: the same few litres sitting in a nearly empty tank make a far stronger blend than they would in a full one. And petrol is rated on how well it withstands igniting under pressure — the opposite of what a diesel needs — so a stronger mix knocks more, smokes more, goes flatter. None of which means you need an answer ready. Nearly no one knows how full the tank was in a car collected two days ago, and our technicians work that out there. Do ring the hire or company firm first, though: some agreements want them to authorise the work, and that is far faster settled before than after. Then phone us about the Vauxhall Astra near Abbotsham Baptist Church. ## Rickards Down prices for a petrol-in-diesel drain Truthfully, no single price fits on a page like this. The job varies. Here's what moves it: - This is the main one: whether the motor has been started, or driven. - The tank's capacity, set against how much of the wrong fuel went into it. - The sort of liquid in the tank, unleaded or AdBlue. - Access: the car's position, and whether working on it there is safe for our van. The vehicle, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back firm and not as a range. If it's not pressing — the car is at home and going nowhere — works too. It got a few streets and stopped. The throttle went dead, your idle turned ragged, and your diesel Citroen C3 is now resting near St Helen's Church. That deadness is your fuel failing to build pressure correctly instead of the motor packing up — and as there is no dashboard light for it, cars in that position usually get driven again before anybody calls. Please don't. Turn it off then phone us. ## Petrol in diesel: common queries around Rickards Down ## At a petrol station in Rickards Down, can you do a fuel drain there? Yes, and it's where a fair part of this work takes place. Regularly, provided the site consents: BP, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where exactly you have stopped. Whether our technicians can work in that location is something our technicians answer there and then. ## How much petrol is too much for a diesel? Whether the engine has run matters a lot more, though the proportion matters too, instead of the litres. What settles how much work is needed is if that mixture has been pulled through the system — because even though five litres in a nearly empty tank is a distinct case from five in a full one, either way that is the question. ## I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. What now? Switch off somewhere sensible, and keep it that way after you stop. Driving is what shifts the trouble from the tank into the pump and injectors — but it's recoverable far more regularly than motorists fear, and the single most helpful thing you can do now isn't restart the vehicle. ## Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties It's not a modification, so a drain then flush carried out correctly doesn't cancel a manufacturer's warranty. What's likelier to start a disagreement is a diesel that has been run on petrol. One more reason for the engine to remain off. ## Two-stroke oil in your tank, and then home? No. Two-stroke oil is an old fix for a distinct fault and it doesn't replace what petrol has thinned. Later on? Still petrol in your tank, and a pump that has to put up with the stuff. ## Do I need a main dealer for petrol in a diesel? No. Our technicians drain and flush the car wherever it is, so there is no need to bring it to a dealership. ## You, and the car, still together? Never switch it on again. Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, turn off, and no restarting the car after that. Cold, parked, going nowhere: that is the best place to be in. Motorists fear this much more than they need to. At the roadside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining around Rickards Down and throughout Devon.