--- title: Petrol in a Diesel Car in Saughton? — Fuel Drain canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/petrol-in-diesel/saughton-city-of-edinburgh/ location: Saughton county: City of Edinburgh latitude: 55.933620 longitude: -3.264950 service: Petrol in a Diesel Car updated: 2026-10-26 --- # Saughton: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car? Do not fire up the engine. If the fuel is still sitting in the tank and the engine has not yet run, a fuel drain is almost always all it requires — and that's settled in the following few minutes, not by how much was put in. Petrol in Diesel drains and cleans wrongly fuelled cars where they sit, throughout Saughton and the remainder of City of Edinburgh, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway. Just one ring our way is plenty: we shall tell you what happens after this. Make this straight away. ## What now? Petrol in a diesel, step by step - Never crank it — and never believe it when it runs. Here is the bit most people get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. A petrol motor given diesel normally just can't run, so the driver stops and the harm stops with them. A diesel filled with petrol normally starts, ticks over and drives away just fine for a few miles. It is not okay. It is grinding the fuel system whenever you drive. - Diesel combusts, and before it burns it greases — your high-pressure fuel pump, the injectors. Petrol does only the burning. So leave the car's ignition alone also: switching it on is commonly enough to prime that system, and priming draws petrol from that tank into precisely those components. - Do not put diesel on top to dilute it. A diesel fuel system does not handle petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes, and topping up takes out nothing — it just hands you a bigger tank of the same mix. The grade makes no difference either: super unleaded is just petrol. - We'd sooner drive to an odd spot than have it started — so if you reasonably can, stay put. Nothing is quicker to sort than a motor that hasn't moved. On the verge on Stenhouse Drive, that means hazards on then leave the vehicle. - Before you call, work out your position. Anything nearest to you with a sign on it, plus a postcode starting EH11 3 — that is what decides whether the technician arrives or circles. - What got in, roughly how much, and also whether the motor has run — those three replies settle the entire visit. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us. The trip back would about double it, for no gain at all. One commute has already put a real volume of petrol-thinned diesel through your high-pressure pump of that Renault Megane. So keep the car where it sits. Ring us from the platform if that is handier — nobody needs you hovering over your car outside Slateford whilst our engineers get on, and tonight trumps finding out on Monday. ## Draining petrol from your diesel at the forecourt Much of this work starts at a forecourt, which means a good part of it is done at one. Still at BP? Then that's usually where it gets done. Station forecourts are normal for us, with the permission of the station. At a forecourt, this is spotted with the engine never fired, and no place else does that. The few seconds between reading your receipt and reaching for your key decide how much requires rinsing. Everywhere other than a forecourt — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — the car was started and moved to get there, so fuel was pulled from the tank, through the filter and into the high-pressure pump. That means the fuel lines and your filter need rinsing as well as your tank. It is not a disaster, and our engineers can still deal with it where the car sits. The staff will usually happily wheel the vehicle out from the petrol pump so the next motorist can get past. It is worth doing. Moving the car four spaces does not merit firing the engine. If you've put petrol in the diesel Volkswagen Passat around Saughton and you're now stranded outside Scotmid with a boot packed with shopping, ring us. Don't crank it once more to leave that bay. We will get to you, empty your tank, purge those fuel lines and put fresh diesel in so you can drive home. A mile or so at gentle throttle uses very little fuel, so these are usually the straightforward jobs. ## Will we cover your side of Saughton? Being a residential suburb, Saughton sees a routine visit, while the areas nearby come along on the same journey: Stenhouse and Carrick Knowe, Broomhouse and Saughtonhall, Parkhead. If yours is not on the list it does not mean we do not come — there are dedicated pages for nearly all locations in City of Edinburgh, and the ones named above are just the immediate neighbours. Contact us and enquire rather than assuming, above all when you're on a border or somewhere the satnav misreads. The map is the ground this page includes. Roadside, forecourt, drive, car park: every bit of that is ground our technicians work on, and none of it asks your vehicle to travel to us. ## Kerbside call-outs around Saughton Not everyone has a safe spot to stop. Hazards going in a lay-by somewhere, or pulled onto the verge beside Stenhouse Gardens North as you worked it out after setting off — we take that call regularly enough that it is the normal kind. Whether you stay by your car or step away from it turns on if sitting in it seems safe. It will usually oblige. A diesel running on petrol limps along very willingly, and that is the trouble: start it up to reach somewhere safer and that blend goes further into your fuel system with every mile travelled. We will take the van to an awkward spot without any fuss, and for the vehicle that's far better than pressing on. ## Driven it already? Stop, and read below under 3 miles out of Saughton, the M8 is what matters here. A loss of power, an uneven idle, some smoke: those are the symptoms when they come, rather than a neat stop — and a wrongly fuelled diesel will often take you onto it and some way along before anything feels wrong at all. Never start it to reposition. Pull off at the next safe exit and switch off. Suppose the worst of that on a long drive. Anything approaching the under 5 miles to the closest city, and the contamination has been through your filter, through the pump, through your injectors. Tell us when you ring. What our engineers bring differs. Sitting still, it gets no worse. The pump is not turning, and so whatever happened on the way to Royal Engineers Memorial Home in that diesel Ford Focus is finished happening. Time is yours. Just do not take it home on the engine to find more of that. ## Saughton itself Saughton is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 3.2 miles west of Edinburgh's city centre. Saughton lies near the coast, with its elevation at around 52 metres, and is bordered by nearby places such as Stenhouse, Carrick Knowe, and Broomhouse. Saughton is predominantly composed of flat-type housing, which accommodates its population of around 7810 residents. ## The call-out around Saughton, step by step - We establish what got in, how much, and whether your engine has run. The replies change the work, which is why we ask before giving a price. - The polluted mixture is pulled out of that tank. - Lines purged, filter cleaned. Whatever remains later is not the thing that caused the trouble. - Priming follows, once clean diesel is in. - We fire it up and make sure it runs properly on fresh diesel. That leaves it ready to set off. Our technicians do everything wherever the vehicle has ended up, which means it never has to go to a workshop, and when it has been spotted early, it is very rare for there to be permanent damage. Why so blunt about leaving your keys alone? Because your pump is ahead of the fuel injectors, and a worn-out one sends whatever it loses downstream with your fuel. Call us. Leave the Dacia Duster close to St Salvador's Episcopal Church. ## Saughton AdBlue removal is a distinct job If what was put in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the opening instruction is unchanged — don't start it — yet this fault isn't. The lubrication a fuel system relies on is stripped away by petrol, which thins the diesel. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water, and in a diesel tank it causes corrosion and residue in its place. We deal with both, and AdBlue removal in Saughton has its own page with the full story — including why it's often the more significant of the two. ## Saughton costs for a petrol-in-diesel drain What shifts the figure is set out below, as this job isn't one job and we cannot honestly put a single price on this page. - Whether the motor has been started or driven. This is the big one. - Wrong fuel in, against what that tank takes — that proportion. - Whether it was unleaded or AdBlue. - Where is it? And can our van reach it and work there safely? A straight answer instead of a range is what you get for telling us three things: the car, the quantity, and if it has run. If it's not urgent — the vehicle is at home and going nowhere — works too. It got a few streets and stopped. The throttle went dead, the idle turned ragged, and the diesel Audi A3 is now resting close to Hutchison Vale F.C. Community Sports Football Club. That softness is the fuel failing to build pressure fully not the motor failing — and as there is no warning light for it, motors in that position generally get driven a second time before anyone phones. Please don't. Turn it off then phone us. ## Saughton drivers ask us these about petrol in diesel ## At a petrol station around Saughton, can you do a fuel drain there? Yes, and it is where a good portion of this work takes place. Tell us which one you're at when you ring and we'll tell you if our engineers can work there. With the station's agreement we attend Sainsbury's and the other forecourts nearby all the time. ## A few litres of petrol in a diesel — too much? It depends on the ratio instead of the litres, and a lot more on whether your engine has run. What determines how much work is needed is whether that mixture has been pulled through the system — because though five litres in a nearly empty tank is a distinct situation from five in a full one, either way that's the question. ## I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. What next? Switch off somewhere sensible, and keep it that way after you stop. Driving is what takes the problem from that tank into the pump and injectors — but it's fixable a lot more frequently than drivers fear, and the single most useful thing you can do now is not restart the vehicle. ## Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties No. Carried out correctly, emptying and cleaning is no modification at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is untouched by it. Another reason to leave it turned off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing likelier to cause a dispute with one. ## Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home? No. It belongs to a different issue from a separate era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind restores. That tank still has petrol in it later on, and your pump still has to cope with it. ## Main dealers and petrol in a diesel Wherever the car is, our technicians drain and clean it there, so a drive to the main dealer does not come into it. ## Standing next to it? Do not turn your engine on again. Switch it off somewhere safe then keep it off, if you have already driven it. This is recoverable from far more commonly than people fear, and a parked, cold vehicle is the best place to be in. Call-out fuel draining around Saughton and across City of Edinburgh — at the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home.