Shooters Hill: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
If you have not fired up the motor as yet, don't. A fuel drain and nothing else is almost always what a motor needs while the petrol is still in your tank and the motor has not run, which is why it's the coming few minutes that matter, not how much got in. Petrol in Diesel travels to your car wherever it has stopped in Shooters Hill or the rest of Greater London, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway, and drains and flushes it there. Contact us before everything else starts, so you'll know what follows next.
Petrol in a diesel: what to try first
- Give a petrol motor diesel and it will generally fail to run at all, and so the person stops there and so does the damage. Feed a diesel petrol and the thing starts, it ticks over, it drives off — fine for a few 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, do not rely on it: that fuel system is wearing down whenever you drive.
- Leave your ignition be also. Diesel does two roles: it ignites, and before it combusts it greases the injection pump and the injectors. Petrol manages the first and not the second. Switching the car's ignition on is often sufficient to prime your system, which carries that petrol out of the tank and into precisely those components.
- Topping up gets rid of nothing. It hands you a bigger tank of the same mixture, since a diesel fuel system won't cope with petrol by percentage in the way that advice suggests — so don't add diesel on top to weaken it. Type is immaterial too: super unleaded is petrol.
- Remain where you are if you reasonably can. A motor that has never moved is the easiest one to handle, and our team would sooner get to a tricky place than have it started. If you're parked on the verge on Constitution Rise, switch the hazards on then leave the car there.
- A van turning up rather than circling hinges on two things: a postcode beginning SE18 4, and whatever is nearest to you with a name on it. Keep both ready before you call.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Expect three questions — what was put in, about how many litres, and whether the engine has been run. Those replies determine whatever happens next.
Forecourt drains for petrol in a diesel
The work begins at a pump, generally. Often enough the work wraps up on site as well. The drain generally happens right there. Still on the forecourt at Shell? Given the site's consent, that is somewhere our technicians work, and often.
Before your engine has fired — the forecourt is the one place it ends up caught. Fuel drawn out of your tank and through your filter, right to the high-pressure pump, is what occurs when the engine is started and the car is moved to where it is now: the car park, the drive or the lay-by, anywhere other than the forecourt. So the flush includes the filter and the lines along with your tank. That's still not a catastrophe, and our engineers sort it out where your car sits. What determines it is whether the ignition was turned in the seconds after the till receipt was checked.
Staff will usually pitch in pushing it away from the petrol pump, which lets the next driver get past. Take the assistance. Rolling the car four bays doesn't warrant firing the engine.
Petrol in your Renault Megane, and it takes diesel? Shopping in the boot, you at Costcutter, somewhere in Shooters Hill? Then phone us, and leave the engine out of it — not even to exit that bay. A technician heads your way. Tank drained, fuel lines purged, fresh diesel in, and home you go. Gentle throttle over a mile uses hardly anything, and so these are often the straightforward ones.
Simple job, this one — till someone takes it home. A diesel Peugeot 3008 parked at The Red Lion with petrol in that tank loses nothing by standing there overnight, so leave the car and phone us once it is light. Expect a query about that run there, though. Brief and chilly is precisely where petrol struggles to burn, and what won't burn can slip past the rings and into the engine oil.
Your pump isn't turning, so whatever the diesel Mercedes E-Class did on the way to Castlewood, none of it is going on now. Nothing is getting worse while it waits. Take your time over this — but do not drive the vehicle home to buy any.
Rattling, a ragged idle, white smoke, a throttle gone dead. That is a misfilled diesel BMW 1 Series telling you what's wrong. Turn off where you have stopped, near Severndroog Castle or anywhere else, and do not start it to find a better location.
It got a couple of streets and stopped. The throttle went limp, the idle turned lumpy, and the diesel Volvo XC60 is now resting near Shrewsbury Barrow. That softness is the fuel failing to build pressure properly instead of the engine giving up — and since there is no dashboard light for it, cars in that position generally get driven a second time before somebody calls. Don't. Switch it off and phone us.
Shooters Hill and the areas next to it
Plumstead, Well Hall, Charlton, Woolwich, Kidbrooke — each of them on the runs that take us over to Shooters Hill too, a residential suburb.
If yours isn't on the list it doesn't mean we do not come — there are dedicated pages for the majority of towns around Greater London, and the ones named above are just the nearest neighbours. Guessing is the habit to avoid, especially on the boundary or somewhere a satnav goes wrong. Phone to check.
The area the page spans appears on our map. Kerbside, forecourt, driveway, car park: all of it is ground our engineers serve, and none of that asks the car to travel to us.
Stopped at the roadside somewhere in Shooters Hill?
Some drivers find no suitable place to stop at all. A normal call for us rather than an unusual one: noticed after setting off, finished up by the verge on Springwater Close or in a lay-by with the hazards flashing.
Whether you sit by the vehicle or move away from it rests on if being there is safe. Don't start up the engine to nurse it somewhere handier — a diesel running on petrol will often oblige, and every mile it obliges for is drawing that mixture further into the system. We'll take our van to an awkward place without any fuss, and for the vehicle that is much better than driving on.
Driven it already? Pull over, and see this
This is where your M11 comes into it — under 10 miles away from Shooters Hill. Some distance along, and onto it in the first place: a misfuelled diesel will frequently manage both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is seldom a tidy stop. Power drains away, the idle turns lumpy, and there may be some smoke.
The next sensible exit is the one to take. Switch off there, and leave the restarting alone. It changes what our engineers bring, and so tell us when you phone: on a longer drive — anything close to the under 10 miles to the closest city — assume the petrol has been through the fuel filter, the pump and your injectors.
All about Shooters Hill
Shooters Hill is a suburban area in south-east London, situated near the River Thames and close to the boroughs of Greenwich and Bexley. Shooters Hill sits at an elevation of 87 metres, offering views of the surrounding area, and is located near the neighbourhoods of Plumstead, Well Hall, and Charlton. Shooters Hill is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, which reflects the typical architectural style of many London suburbs. Shooters Hill is also relatively close to central London, being approximately 8.5 miles from the city centre.
Our visit around Shooters Hill, step by step
- Three things get established before any quote — your fuel that was put in, the amount, and if anything has been run since. Each answer changes the work.
- Away comes the tainted fuel.
- What is remaining in the system should not be what created the issue, and so your fuel lines get purged and your filter cleared.
- The system gets primed, on fresh diesel.
- It's fired up with clean diesel in it, and our technicians confirm that it is running correctly.
The vehicle is then ready for you to drive away. There's no need for a workshop at any point, because the work is all done where your car is, and when it's caught quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
Shooters Hill AdBlue removal is a different matter
If what went in was AdBlue rather than petrol, the first rule is unchanged — do not crank it — yet the problem is not. The protection a fuel system depends on gets taken away by petrol, which thins the diesel. Corrosion and build-up are what a diesel tank ends up with instead, as AdBlue is urea in water.
Often the more serious of the two, AdBlue — and the details lives on its own Shooters Hill page. Both are ours to deal with.
What a petrol-in-diesel drain costs in Shooters Hill
One figure would not be honest here, as this is not one job. These are the things that change it:
- Has it been run or driven? Nothing else counts for as much.
- Wrong fuel in, against what that tank holds — that proportion.
- AdBlue or unleaded, whichever was put in.
- Access: the vehicle's position, and if working on it there is safe for a technician.
The vehicle, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back straight rather than as a range. Car at home, going nowhere, nothing urgent about it — is fine for that.
Petrol in diesel questions from Shooters Hill drivers
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station in Shooters Hill?
Much of what our engineers do happens nowhere else. So yes. Often, provided the site consents: JET, 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 engineers answer on the spot.
A couple of litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
It hinges on the proportion rather than the litres, and a lot more on whether the engine has run. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a different case from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that settles how much work is needed is whether that blend has been sucked through the fuel system.
Petrol in my diesel, and I have driven the vehicle
Stop sensibly. Off. Nothing after that. Not restarting it is the single most helpful thing available to you now. Driving does move the trouble out of the tank then into your pump and injectors, yes, and it stays salvageable a lot more regularly than people fear.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
A manufacturer's warranty withstands a drain then flush done to a correct standard, which is no change at all. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing likelier to cause a dispute with one, which is another reason to leave it turned off.
Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old fix for a distinct issue and it does not restore what petrol has weakened. Petrol remains in that tank after that, whatever else goes in, and your pump gets no reprieve from it.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
There's no need to take it to a franchised dealer, since our engineers drain and flush the vehicle wherever it is.
Is the vehicle still with you?
Shut off is the way the car stays.
Driven it already? Then somewhere sensible, stop, switch off, and no restarting the car afterwards. This is recoverable from far more often than drivers assume, and a stationary, cold vehicle is the best place to be in.
Call-out fuel draining in Shooters Hill and throughout Greater London — at the roadside, on the forecourt or at home.