Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in Silverstone? Don't Start It
If you have not fired up your engine as yet, don't. A fuel drain and nothing else is nearly always what a car requires while the petrol is still sitting in your tank and the motor has not run, which is why it is the next few minutes that count, not how much went in. Petrol in Diesel comes to your car wherever it has come to rest in Silverstone or the remainder of Northamptonshire, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a drive, and drains and cleans it there. Contact us before everything else starts, and you will see what comes from there.
What to do next about petrol in a diesel
- Feed a petrol motor diesel and it will usually fail to run at all, and so the driver stops there and so does the damage. Give a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it ticks over, it pulls away — fine for a couple of miles. Most people have that backwards, which is the thing they get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. So never start the car. And once started, do not rely on it: that fuel system is grinding while you drive.
- Leave your ignition alone too. Diesel performs two tasks: it burns, and before it burns it greases that high-pressure fuel pump and its injectors. Petrol manages the first and not the second. Switching your ignition on is commonly sufficient to prime that system, which pulls this petrol out of your tank then into exactly those parts.
- Topping up takes out nothing. It hands you a larger tank of the same mixture, because a diesel fuel system will not handle petrol by percentage in the way that guidance implies — so do not add diesel on top to dilute it. Octane is irrelevant too: super unleaded is petrol.
- A car that has not moved is the quickest one to sort out, and so remain where you are if you safely can. Parked on the verge on Chapel Hill? Hazards on, then keep the car there. A tricky location works for us better than a started motor.
- Before you phone, work out your whereabouts. Anything next to you with a sign on it, plus a postcode that starts NN12 8 — that's what decides whether the van shows up or circles.
- Ring 0333 366 0103. Let us know what went in, about how much, and also if the engine has run. Those three details determine the full call-out.
The high-pressure pump did that morning drive running on a fluid that had shed a lot of the protection it is built around. Diesel lubricates that pump, and the injectors with it, before any of the fuel ignites; petrol does the burning and none of the oiling. So imagine a diesel Volkswagen Passat, filled at quarter past eight, taken in to work, and left standing at Wolverton until you realise at about eleven. Three hours of standing have changed nothing about it. The few miles before that altered a good deal, which is why the thing our engineers ask is about mileage not hours. Phone us. Keep the vehicle just where it is.
We're in car parks like the one outside Waitrose a lot, and it's hardly ever the fuel that complicates them. It is the bay. Motors both sides. Trolleys stacked up behind. At times a height limit at the way in, which determines whether our van reaches you at all. So mention how boxed in you are when you ring, and which way your car is pointing. If there's no clearance to work alongside your Renault Clio, our engineers shift it without the engine. That is not fussiness over a handful of seconds: starts prime things, blend comes out of your tank towards your pump, and a motor moved twice for a better spot is quietly a harder job than one nobody touched.
Your diesel Peugeot 308 will have seemed entirely usual on the way back from Silverstone Church of England Primary School. They all do, and that is the catch with petrol in a diesel rather than the other way round. Put diesel in a petrol motor and it usually will not run, so the driver stops and the harm stops with them. Put petrol in a diesel and it starts, ticks over and pulls away as though nothing has happened — all while the high-pressure fuel pump does its work without the protection the fuel is supposed to be supplying. Nothing tells you, since from the driver's seat there's nothing to caution you about. Phone us with approximately how far you travelled and how hard you worked it; the second one counts more than the first.
None of it is the engine failing. That is the part worth hearing, and it's why the ordinary Pocket park call ends better than it sounds: a diesel BMW 5 Series drives out there without fuss, comes back with the power gone, your idle rough and perhaps a little smoke, and the cause is your fuel no longer behaving like diesel. Diesel has to be thick enough to seal the precision parts it flows through; petrol dilutes it; and a diesel injection system is hydraulic as much as chemical, needing your fuel to hold pressure rather than only to burn. So pressure that should build then stay built escapes past tolerances, delivery arrives weaker and later and less even than engineered, and all of that stops once your fuel is put right.
Strange spots are where this happens most, and the reason is mechanical rather than sloppy: the slimmer petrol nozzle slides into a current diesel filler neck with almost no resistance at all. Fuelled up close to St. Michael's Church without thinking, in a diesel Kia Sportage you have had for two days? Call us where you are. Hire and courtesy cars tend to get driven further before anyone realises, and mileage is what decides how much petrol gets to the fuel injectors.
Clearing petrol from the diesel on a forecourt
Much of the work starts at a forecourt, so a large chunk of it gets finished on site. Still at AvantiGas? Then that is generally where it takes place. Garage forecourts are routine for us, with the permission of the owner.
A forecourt is the single place this gets spotted before the engine has run. The few seconds between checking your receipt and reaching for the key determine how much requires rinsing. Anywhere other than a forecourt — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the car was started and moved to get there, so fuel was pulled from that tank, through the fuel filter then into the high-pressure fuel pump. That means the fuel lines and the filter require cleaning as well as that tank. It is not a catastrophe, and our engineers can still put it right where the vehicle stands.
Staff will usually pitch in pushing it clear of the pump, which lets the next driver get by. Welcome the help. Moving the car four lengths doesn't justify cranking the motor.
Parts we cover around Silverstone
Silverstone is a village, and our team are out to it and to the areas around it on the usual runs: Cattle End, Whittlebury, Abthorpe, Foscote and Slapton.
If yours is not on that list it doesn't mean we don't come — there are pages for the majority of locations around Northamptonshire, and the ones mentioned above are merely the immediate neighbours. Contact us and enquire rather than presuming, especially when you are on a border or somewhere your phone misreads.
The area the page includes is on this map. Our technicians work by the road, on forecourts, on driveways and in car parks over all of that, and the car never needs to move to us.
Silverstone: stuck wherever you pulled up
Not everyone has a safe spot to pull in. A routine call for us instead of a rare one: realised after setting off, finished up along the verge on High Street or at a lay-by with the hazard lights on.
Stay with the car if it is safe to be in it, yet clear of the vehicle if it is not. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol draws that mixture further into the fuel system — and oblige it usually will, which is why the engine doesn't get restarted to limp somewhere handier. A van heading to an inconvenient location is no bother for us, and it is a lot better for the car than pressing on.
A couple of miles on petrol in a diesel: what next?
This is where the local M1 matters, under 10 miles away from Silverstone. Some way along, and onto it in the first place: a wrongly fuelled diesel will usually do both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is seldom a clean stop. Power ebbs away, your idle turns uneven, and there may be smoke.
Take the next exit that is safe, stop there, and do not start it to move it. Long drive? Anything near the under 15 miles to the closest city and you should presume the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of it arrived at by the petrol. Say that on the call, because it alters what goes in our van.
Silverstone itself
Silverstone is a village in Northamptonshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 131 metres. Silverstone lies near several other small settlements, including Cattle End, Whittlebury, and Abthorpe, and is around 12 miles from Milton Keynes. Silverstone has a population of approximately 1503 people, living mostly in detached houses. Silverstone is also within commuting distance of London, being about 55 miles from the capital.
What happens when our engineers reach you in Silverstone
- Our engineers ask first, price after. What got in? How much? Has your engine run? Those responses alter what the work really is.
- Your tank gets cleared of it.
- Our technicians purge the lines and clear the filter, and so what's left in the fuel system is not what started the trouble.
- Our engineers pour clean diesel in and bleed your system.
- When it is started, we make sure it runs smoothly on fresh diesel.
That leaves it ready to drive away. Permanent damage is very unusual when it has been noticed soon, and since all of this is done where the vehicle is, it never has to go to a garage.
AdBlue in the diesel tank by mistake, around Silverstone?
Do not fire it up: that opening instruction holds whether what was put in was AdBlue or petrol. What changes is the issue itself. Petrol does two things to diesel: weakens it, and takes away the protection the fuel system depends on. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water, and in a diesel tank it causes corrosion and build-up instead.
Our engineers cover both, and AdBlue removal around Silverstone has its own page with the full story — including why it is usually the more significant of the two.
Silverstone costs for a petrol-in-diesel drain
What changes the price is listed below, because this job isn't one job and our technicians cannot truthfully put a single price on this page.
- Started? Driven? Either answer counts more than anything else on this list.
- How much of the wrong fuel got in, set against how much your tank takes.
- The type of liquid in the tank, unleaded or AdBlue.
- Access: the car's position, and if working on it there's sensible for a van.
Tell us what the car is, how much went in, and if the motor has run. A straight answer comes back, not a range. For the car at home that's going nowhere and is not pressing, works too.
Petrol in diesel queries from Silverstone motorists
At a petrol station in Silverstone, can you do a fuel drain there?
Yes — forecourts are where a good share of this gets done. Regularly, provided the site consents: Gulf, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where precisely you have stopped. Whether we can work in that location is something we answer straight away.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
It depends on the proportion rather than the litres, and much more on whether your engine has run. What determines how much work is needed is whether that mix has been drawn through your fuel system — since even though five litres in an almost empty tank is a separate matter from five in a full one, either way that is the question.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the car. What next?
Stop safely. Off. Nothing after that. It is recoverable far more often than drivers fear, even though driving is what takes the problem from the tank into the pump and injectors — and the single most valuable thing you can do now isn't restart it.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
It's not a change, so a drain then flush carried out properly does not void a manufacturer's warranty. Another good reason to leave it switched off: running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause a dispute with one.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. Two-stroke oil is an old remedy for a distinct problem and it doesn't put back what petrol has weakened. Petrol stays in that tank afterwards, whatever else goes in, and your pump gets no reprieve from it.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
Wherever your car is, our engineers drain and flush it there, so a trip to the main dealer doesn't come into it.
Is your car still with you?
Leave it switched off.
Already driven it? Then stop somewhere safe, turn off, and let it stay that way. Cold and stationary, a car is in the best place available — and people fear this much more than the recovery rate warrants.
Emptying wrongly fuelled motors, Silverstone and the rest of Northamptonshire, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.