--- title: Petrol in a Diesel Car Roslin — Fuel Drain canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/petrol-in-diesel/roslin-midlothian/ location: Roslin county: Midlothian latitude: 55.858130 longitude: -3.165910 service: Petrol in a Diesel Car updated: 2026-10-05 --- # Petrol in a Diesel Car in Roslin Petrol in Diesel drains and flushes wrongly fuelled vehicles where they stand, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a drive, across Roslin and the remainder of Midlothian. The very first thing to do is not to fire up the engine. While the engine has not yet turned over and the petrol is still in that tank, a drain is almost always all it needs, and the following few minutes settle that, not how much got in. Just one ring to us will be plenty: our engineers shall show you what follows after this. Try it first. ## Petrol in a diesel: what to do next - Feed a petrol motor diesel and it will usually fail to run at all, so the driver stops there and so does the harm. Feed a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it idles, it pulls away — fine for a couple of miles. Most people have that reversed, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. So don't crank it. And once started, never believe it: your fuel system is grinding as you drive. - Diesel burns, and before it ignites it greases — the high-pressure pump, those injectors. Petrol does only the burning. So leave the car's ignition be too: turning it on is frequently sufficient to prime the system, and priming moves petrol from your tank into exactly those components. - Do not pour diesel on top to thin it. A diesel fuel system will not cope with petrol by percentage as that advice assumes, and topping up takes out nothing — it only leaves you a fuller tank of the same mix. The octane makes no difference either: super unleaded is still petrol. - Sit tight if it is wise to. Hazards on, motor off, keep the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Station Road, anywhere — an awkward location for us trumps a started diesel, and nothing is easier for us to deal with than a motor that never moved. - Before you phone, get your whereabouts. Anything closest to you with a sign on it, plus a postcode that starts EH25 9 — that's what determines whether our van shows up or circles. - Dial 0333 366 0103. Prepare for three queries — what went in, about how much, and if the car has been turned over. Your responses settle everything that comes after. ## Pump-side drains for petrol in a diesel Forecourts are where the job mostly kicks off, and where a big portion of that finishes. If you are still on the forecourt at Asda, that is normally where this drain gets done — we operate on station forecourts routinely, with the station's permission. At a garage, this is caught with the motor never fired, and nowhere else manages that. The few seconds between reading the receipt and reaching for the key determine how much needs cleaning. Everywhere other than a forecourt — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — your car was fired up and driven to get there, so fuel was pulled from your tank, through the fuel filter then into the high-pressure pump. That means the fuel lines and the filter need flushing as well as your tank. It's not a disaster, and our technicians can still deal with it where the vehicle stands. Out from the petrol pump, the next driver can get by — so yes, let the staff help you roll the vehicle. Worth doing. Four car lengths isn't worth the risk. ## Will our engineers serve your corner of Roslin? As a village, Roslin gets a regular call, while the places nearby go with it on the same journey: Bilston and Milton Bridge, Seafield and Bush, Rosewell. If yours is not on that list that does not mean we do not come — there are separate pages for the majority of places in Midlothian, and the ones named above are simply the nearest neighbours. Guessing is the thing to avoid, above all on the border or somewhere the satnav goes wrong. Contact us to ask. This map shows the patch this page includes. Our technicians work by the road, on forecourts, on driveways and in car parks across all of it, and your car does not need to travel to us. Put diesel in a petrol car and mostly it won't run, and so the person stops there and the wear stops with them. Reverse it — petrol into a diesel — and the engine starts, idles and pulls away as though nothing had happened, whilst the high-pressure pump works without the lubrication your fuel is supposed to be providing. That is the trap, and it's why your diesel Nissan Qashqai will have felt completely normal coming back from the local primary school. They do. From behind the wheel there is nothing to alert you about, and so nothing tells you. Call us with roughly how far you drove, and how hard; the second one matters more than the first. ## Stranded at the roadside near Roslin Not everybody gets the chance to stop anywhere sensible. If you worked it out after setting off and finished up along the verge on St Clair Crescent, or at a lay-by somewhere with the hazard lights going, that is a common call for us rather than a rare one. Stay beside your car if it's safe to wait in it, yet out of the car if it isn't. Don't restart the motor to nurse it somewhere safer — a diesel running on petrol will usually oblige, and every mile it obliges for is dragging that mixture further into the system. However tricky the location, it is no trouble for us to come to it, and that is a lot better for the vehicle than pressing on. Three replies determine most of the work: what was put in, about how much, and whether the engine has run since. We ask for them as soon as we reach the vehicle in the car park outside The Royal British Legion Scotland. Then the polluted mix comes out of your tank, the fuel lines are flushed, and where your Ford Focus has a replaceable filter, it comes off. Once fresh diesel is in and your system bled, we fire it up and confirm it runs smoothly before you pull away. ## Petrol in a diesel, but the motor has travelled The local M8 is the road that matters here, and lies under 10 miles from Roslin. Some way along, and onto it in the first place: a wrongly fuelled diesel will usually do both before anything seems wrong. What you get then is rarely a clean stop. Power falls away, your idle gets rough, and there may be some smoke. Come off at the first safe exit, switch off, and never restart the vehicle to move it. Suppose the worst of that on a long trip. Anything approaching the under 10 miles to the nearest city, and the petrol has been through the filter, through your pump, through the injectors. Tell us when you call. What our technicians bring alters. ## A bit about Roslin Roslin is a village situated on the banks of the River North Esk in Midlothian, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Roslin sits at an elevation of 156 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Bilston and Milton Bridge. Roslin is located near the city of Edinburgh, which is approximately 6.6 miles away, and is part of the wider commuter belt around the Scottish capital. Roslin has a population of around 1698 people, according to recent estimates. ## The call-out around Roslin, step by step - We ask first, quote after. What got in? How much? Has your engine run? Those answers alter what the work really is. - We clear the tank of all the tainted mixture. - Fuel lines are cleaned through and the fuel filter cleared, leaving nothing in the system that started any of this. - The fuel system gets primed, on fresh diesel. - The engine is started and checked to be sure it runs properly on new diesel. From that point, you're ready to pull away. All of it is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to go to a garage, and when it has been noticed early, lasting damage is very unusual. Leave the Mercedes A-Class by War Memorial then call us. We're direct about not driving on since a wearing pump loses, and what it sheds moves on with your fuel to the fuel injectors further along. ## A distinct matter: AdBlue in a diesel tank in Roslin The fault isn't the same, though the opening instruction is — don't fire it up — if what got in was AdBlue rather than petrol. Petrol dilutes your diesel and removes the lubrication the system relies on. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Put that in with your diesel and you get corrosion instead, plus residue. Frequently the more serious of the two, AdBlue — and the detail sits on its own Roslin page. Both are ours to deal with. A throttle gone limp, white smoke, a lumpy idle, knocking: that's a misfuelled diesel Kia Sportage telling you what's wrong. Never start it to find a better spot — switch off where you have stopped, close to Roslin Parish Church or anywhere else. ## Roslin pricing for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain Frankly, no single figure fits on a page like this. The job changes. Here is what moves it: - Started? Driven? Either answer counts more than anything else on this list. - Wrong fuel in, against what your tank takes — that ratio. - AdBlue or petrol, whichever got in. - Access: the vehicle's position, and if working on it there is safe for our van. The car, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back clear instead of as a range. Not pressing, with your car at home and going nowhere? Then works. That softness is the fuel failing to build pressure correctly, not your engine packing up — and with no dashboard light for it, cars in that position typically get driven a second time before somebody phones. Please don't. A couple of streets is all it got: throttle gone soft, idle turned uneven, and a diesel Vauxhall Insignia now sitting near Rosslyn Chapel Visitor Centre. Switch it off and ring us. ## Questions our engineers hear about petrol in diesel around Roslin ## I'm on a forecourt around Roslin. Can you drain the vehicle on the spot? A fair part of this work gets done there, so yes. Tell us which one you are at when you call and we'll tell you if we can work there. With the site's consent our engineers visit Costco and the other forecourts around town all the time. ## A few litres of petrol in a diesel — too much? Litres are not the yardstick. Proportion is, and far more than either, it matters if anything has been run. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a different matter from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that settles how much work is required is if that blend has been sucked through the system. ## Petrol in my diesel, and I have driven it Stop safely. Off. Nothing after that. It is recoverable a lot more regularly than people fear, even though driving is what shifts the problem from that tank into the pump and injectors — and the single most useful thing you can do now isn't restart it. ## Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty? A drain then flush carried out correctly is not a modification and does not void a manufacturer's warranty. Another reason to leave it switched off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a dispute with one. ## Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home? No. It belongs to a different fault from a separate era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind restores. Petrol remains in that tank later on, whatever else goes in, and your pump gets no respite from it. ## Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer? You do not need one. The car is drained and cleaned wherever it is, with no need to bring it to a dealership. ## Still with your car? Leave the engine switched off. Switch it off somewhere safe and leave it off, if you have already driven it. This is recoverable from a lot more commonly than people expect, and a stationary, cold vehicle is the best place to be in. At the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining in Roslin and across Midlothian.