Petrol in a Diesel Car in Stenhouse
Petrol in Diesel drains and flushes wrongly fuelled vehicles where they are, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a driveway, all over Stenhouse and the rest of City of Edinburgh. The very first thing to do is not to start the motor. While your engine has not turned over and the petrol is still inside your tank, a fuel drain is nearly always all it requires, and the coming few minutes decide that, not how much got in. Just one ring our way will be plenty: our engineers shall show you what happens next. Try that first.
Petrol in a diesel: what to try first
- Do not start the car — and never believe it if it does start. Here is the part motorists get wrong about petrol in a diesel especially. A petrol motor given diesel normally just can't run, so the motorist stops and the damage stops with them. A diesel fed petrol typically starts, idles and drives away just fine for several miles. It isn't fine. It is eating into the fuel system while you drive.
- Diesel ignites, and before it burns it greases — your high-pressure fuel pump, the injectors. Petrol handles only the burning. So leave the car's ignition alone too: turning it on is commonly all it takes to prime the system, and priming carries petrol from the tank into precisely those parts.
- Do not tip diesel on top to weaken it. A diesel fuel system does not accept petrol by percentage as that guidance assumes, and topping up takes out nothing — it just gives you a larger tank of the same mix. The octane makes no difference either: super unleaded is still petrol.
- Stay still if it's safe to. Hazards on, ignition off, keep it. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Stenhouse Drive, anywhere — an awkward spot for us trumps a started diesel, and nothing is simpler for us to deal with than a car that never shifted.
- The van arriving rather than circling turns on two things: a postcode beginning EH11 3, and whatever is closest to you with a label on it. Have both prepared before you dial.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Tell us what went in, about how many litres, and also if the car has fired. These three replies settle the whole call-out.
On a forecourt: draining petrol from a diesel
A big portion of the work is done at a forecourt, since that is where it often kicks off. We work on garage forecourts routinely, with the site's agreement, and so if you are still at BP that is normally where this drain takes place.
No place except the forecourt can this be stopped with your engine still cold. Everywhere else — a car park, a private drive, a lay-by — the car was fired up and moved to get there, which means fuel was pulled from your tank, through your filter and into the high-pressure fuel pump. That's not a disaster, and our technicians can still put it right where it stands. It does mean your lines and the filter need cleaning as well as that tank, and that's decided by the few seconds between checking your receipt and going for your key.
Out from the petrol pump, the next motorist can get through — so yes, let the attendants help you wheel it. Well worth it. Four car lengths isn't worth a start.
Coverage near Stenhouse
These same rounds take us to Saughton, Slateford, Longstone, Saughtonhall and Carrick Knowe besides Stenhouse, which is a residential suburb.
Not on the list? That says nothing. The places above are simply the nearest few, and the majority of towns in City of Edinburgh have a page of their own elsewhere on our site. On a boundary, or anywhere your phone gets wrong? Ring us to check instead of assuming.
The map shows the patch the page covers. The car doesn't need to travel to us. Our technicians work over all of that — kerbside, forecourts, driveways, car parks.
A diesel pump meters fuel to demand, and a hurried morning drive demands plenty — so three miles in the Mercedes E-Class feels like nothing and is not. Twenty to nine by the local primary school, already late, a receipt in your hand showing unleaded: hazards on, ignition off, phone.
Never chance it. The journey home from The Laich is entirely possible, which is exactly the issue — a diluted tank doesn't stop a diesel starting or pulling away, it just grinds the components the fuel is meant to protect. Ring us, and let the BMW 1 Series stay where it is.
Stop somewhere safe, switch off and ring us. Normal on the way out to Stenhouse Place East Park, gutless on the way back? Then look at the tank. Petrol thins diesel; runnier fuel slips past the tightly fitted components that build injection pressure; and the farther the diesel Vauxhall Astra drove, the less of that pressure it held.
Three things help when you ring from near Hutchison Vale F.C. Community Sports Football Club: which side the filler is on, whether our van can park next to without blocking the road, and whether the motor has run since you filled up. On-street is the usual location we work, so the location itself is hardly ever the issue — we'd much rather deal with a cramped parking space than with a vehicle that has been driven to somewhere more convenient. We will drain your Audi A6, change the filter where there is a serviceable one, flush the fuel lines and put fresh fuel through the full circuit, because by this point the worst of it is resting in the fuel lines instead of in that tank.
That softness is your fuel failing to build pressure properly, not the engine giving up — and with no dashboard light for it, motors in that position typically get driven a second time before anybody rings. Please don't. A few streets is all it got: throttle gone limp, idle turned uneven, and a diesel Seat Leon now resting near YMCA. Turn the vehicle off then phone us.
Kerbside stops in Stenhouse
The opportunity to pull over anywhere safe doesn't fall to everybody. Set off, then realised? Finished up along the verge of Stenhouse Crescent, or parked in some lay-by with your hazards going? That is a common call here. Not an unusual one.
Sit beside the motor while it's safe to sit inside, and out of it if it is not. It will usually oblige. A diesel running on petrol limps along quite willingly, and that's the trouble: fire it up to get to somewhere safer and the mix goes further into your fuel system with every mile travelled. We'll send the van to an inconvenient place without any trouble, and for the car that's a lot better than carrying on.
A few miles on petrol in a diesel: now what?
The M8 is the one that counts here, and runs under 3 miles from Stenhouse. Some way along, and onto it in the first place: a misfilled diesel will often do both before anything feels wrong. What you get then is seldom a tidy stop. Power ebbs away, the idle gets lumpy, and there may be smoke.
Take the first exit that is sensible, pull up there, and never restart it to reposition. Long drive? Anything close to the under 5 miles to the closest city and you should suppose the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of that reached by the petrol. Say that on the call, because it changes what goes in our van.
A little about Stenhouse
Stenhouse is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated near the River Almond and close to the city centre. Stenhouse sits at an elevation of 53 metres, with views of the surrounding landscape and the nearby Pentland Hills. Stenhouse is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing and its proximity to neighbouring areas such as Saughton and Slateford.
What follows when our engineers get to you around Stenhouse
- Our engineers ask first, price after. What was put in? How much? Has the motor run? Those replies change what the work really is.
- Out comes the polluted mixture.
- What is left in the fuel system should not be what caused the problem, and so the fuel lines get flushed and the filter cleaned.
- Priming follows, once new diesel is in.
- The engine is started and checked to make sure it runs smoothly on new diesel.
From there, you're ready to pull away. Lasting damage is very uncommon when it has been spotted early, and as all of it is done where the vehicle is, it never has to go to a garage.
AdBlue in the diesel tank instead, around Stenhouse?
If what went in was AdBlue rather than petrol, the first rule is the same — never start it — but the issue is not. Weakened diesel, and no lubrication left for your fuel system that depends on it. That is petrol. Corrosion and deposits are what a diesel tank gets instead, since AdBlue is urea in water.
We handle both, and AdBlue removal in Stenhouse has its own page with the full story — including why it is often the more significant of the two.
Paying for a petrol-in-diesel drain in Stenhouse
Honestly, no single number fits on a page like this. The job changes. Here's what varies it:
- Started? Driven? Either answer counts more than anything else on this list.
- How much of the wrong fuel was put in, judged against how much your tank can hold.
- Whether it was petrol or AdBlue.
- Whether a van can sensibly get to your car and work on it, which depends on where your vehicle is.
A clear answer rather than a range is what you get for telling us three things: your car, the quantity, and whether it has run. Not pressing, with the vehicle at home and going nowhere? Then is fine.
Petrol in diesel: everyday queries around Stenhouse
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station in Stenhouse?
Yes — forecourts are where a large share of this happens. Routinely, provided the site consents: Sainsbury's, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where exactly you have stopped. Whether we can work in that location is something our technicians answer there and then.
How much petrol in a diesel is too much?
Ratio decides it instead of litres — and more than either, whether your motor has run. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a different matter from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that decides how much work is needed is if that mixture has been pulled through your fuel system.
I drove the vehicle after putting petrol in my diesel. What next?
Somewhere sensible, then stop, then turn off and leave it off. Driving is what moves the problem from that tank into the pump and injectors — but it's fixable a lot more commonly than drivers fear, and the single most useful thing you can do now is not restart it.
Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties
It's not a modification, and so a drain then flush carried out correctly doesn't invalidate a manufacturer's warranty. A disagreement over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it switched off.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
No. It belongs to a distinct fault from a separate era, and petrol has diluted something no oil of that kind restores. Later on? Still petrol in the tank, and a pump that has to cope with the stuff.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
There is no need to take it to a franchised dealer, as we drain and clean the car wherever it is.
Still with your vehicle?
Turned off is the way it stays.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, turn off, and no restarting the car later on. Cold, parked, going nowhere: that is the best position to be in. People fear this far more than they need to.
At the roadside, on the forecourt or at home — mobile fuel draining around Stenhouse and throughout City of Edinburgh.