Stockwitch Cross: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With that tank still holding the petrol and your engine not yet turned over, almost every job requires only a drain, so keep the engine off. That result is determined in the minutes right after the fill-up, rather than by the amount that went in. Throughout Stockwitch Cross and the remainder of Somerset, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and flushes it where it stands, whether by a roadside, on a drive or at a forecourt. We can show you what the following part will be. Call us — that comes before everything else.
Your next five steps: petrol in a diesel
- Feed a petrol motor diesel and it will normally refuse to run at all, so the driver stops there and so does the damage. Feed a diesel petrol and the car starts, it ticks over, it pulls away — fine enough for a couple of miles. Drivers have that backwards, which is the bit they get wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. So do not fire it up. And once started, do not trust it: your fuel system is grinding as you drive.
- Turning the car's ignition on commonly primes the system, and priming is what pulls petrol out of the tank and into your pump and injectors. Those are the parts diesel keeps greased on its way through, before it burns. Petrol manages the burning and none of the oiling. Leave the car's ignition alone.
- Topping up removes nothing. It hands you a larger tank of the same blend, since a diesel fuel system doesn't tolerate petrol by percentage in the way that advice presumes — so don't pour diesel on top to weaken it. Octane is beside the point too: super unleaded is petrol.
- A car that hasn't moved is the simplest one to deal with, so wait where you are if you sensibly can. Pulled up on the verge on B3151? Hazards on, then leave the vehicle there. An odd spot suits us better than a started motor.
- Find out where you are before calling. A postcode starting BA22 8, and the name of whatever is nearest to you. Otherwise the van circles rather than arriving.
- Call 0333 366 0103. Anticipate three points — what went in, approximately how many litres, plus whether the car has been started. Your replies decide whatever comes after.
Nothing about the time since has lost you anything. Fuel in a tank is idle, and so a diesel Volkswagen Golf left outside Yeovil Pen Mill this morning is no worse at five than it was at nine — what pulled thinned diesel through the pump was the drive in. Call us before you set off to fetch the car.
How far, and how hard? The second of those counts more than the first, and so have both prepared. The Skoda Octavia will have seemed completely normal on the way back from Ilchester Community School — they all do, and that is the snag. Diesel into a petrol car usually will not run at all: the motorist stops, and so does the damage. Petrol into a diesel fires up, idles, pulls away like nothing happened, while the high-pressure fuel pump gets on with its work minus the protection your fuel should be giving it. No warning arrives, as behind the wheel nothing looks wrong.
Chance the journey home from The Podymore Inn? No. It will fire up and it will move off perfectly well, which is the trouble — a diesel on a diluted tank runs usually while wearing down the parts your fuel should be protecting. Park the BMW 3 Series and phone.
Clearing your Ford Focus, changing the filter where there's a usable one, purging the fuel lines, putting fresh fuel through the entire system: that's this job, and it is shaped by the worst of it waiting in your lines rather than in that tank by this point. Three things help when you call from near Cobham Hall — which side the filler is on, whether a technician can park next to without blocking the road, and whether the engine has run since you filled up. On-street is the usual spot our technicians work, and so the place itself is seldom the problem. A narrow parking bay trumps a motor driven somewhere more convenient.
What happens next is the issue. The motor straight away draws the petrol left waiting in your filter and the feed lines back round through the pump a second time, as emptying a tank does nothing about fuel that has already left it. Drain it and put new diesel in, somebody certain will tell you — and that tip is half right, since do it to a diesel Citroen C3 parked up, Fleet Air Arm Museum say, and the thing starts, which is what makes it sound sensible. Phone us instead. Our technicians flush the system and take the filter off where the vehicle has a working one, and that is the difference between the vehicle being fixed and the vehicle just starting.
Draining petrol from the diesel on a forecourt
Much of this work begins at a pump, so a good part of that is done on site. The drain usually gets done on the spot. Still on the forecourt at Esso? Given the station's agreement, that is a spot our engineers work, and often.
The forecourt is the single location the mistake can be stopped before the engine has started. The few seconds between reading your receipt and going for the keys decide how much requires rinsing. Anywhere other than the forecourt — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — the car was started and moved to get there, so fuel was sucked from your tank, through your filter then into the high-pressure pump. That means the lines and the fuel filter need cleaning as well as your tank. It is not a catastrophe, and we can still sort it out where the vehicle is.
Attendants will normally chip in pushing it clear of the petrol pump, which lets the next motorist get by. Accept the offer. Rolling it four spaces does not merit firing the motor.
Places we reach near Stockwitch Cross
Bridgehampton, Speckington, Podimore, Urgashay, Downhead — all of those on the rounds that take us out to Stockwitch Cross too, a small village.
If yours is not on this list that does not mean we don't come — there are separate pages for the majority of places across Somerset, and the ones mentioned above are just the closest neighbours. Presuming is the habit to resist, especially on the boundary or somewhere your phone struggles. Phone to enquire.
The map shows the ground this page covers. Every bit of that is ground we serve: a roadside, a forecourt, a drive, a car park. You never bring your vehicle anywhere.
Stockwitch Cross: stuck where you parked
The chance to pull over somewhere suitable does not fall to everyone. Set off, then realised? Finished up by the verge on Heathcote Road, or parked in some lay-by with your hazards on? That is a common call here. Not a rare one.
Remain by your car while it's safe to be in it, yet clear of the vehicle if it isn't. It will often oblige. A diesel running on petrol limps along perfectly willingly, and that is the catch: start it up to get to somewhere handier and that mix goes further into your fuel system with every mile driven. However tricky the location, it's no trouble for us to come to it, and that's far better for the car than pressing on.
Run it already? Pull in, then see below
This is where the M5 comes into it — under 25 miles away from Stockwitch Cross. It will frequently take you onto it, and some way along, before you notice a thing. Then it's smoke, a rough idle and power ebbing away — not a tidy stop. Misfuelled diesels rarely give you one of those.
Do not start it to reposition. Pull off at the next sensible exit then turn off. Long run? Anything approaching the under 15 miles to the nearest city and you should suppose the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of that reached by the petrol. Say that on the phone, as it changes what goes in our van.
A bit about Stockwitch Cross
Stockwitch Cross is a small locality in inland Somerset, situated near the villages of Bridgehampton and Speckington. Stockwitch Cross has a relatively low elevation of around 20 metres, and is located approximately 13 miles from the city of Wells. Stockwitch Cross is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Stockwitch Cross is also within commuting distance of larger cities, with London being around 114 miles away.
What our technicians do when we arrive with you in Stockwitch Cross
- The responses change the work, which is why our engineers ask before quoting: what went in, how much of it, and whether your motor has run.
- The contaminated mixture is pulled from your tank.
- What is left in the fuel system shouldn't be what caused the trouble, and so the fuel lines get cleaned and the filter cleared.
- Clean diesel goes in, and then your system gets primed.
- The motor is turned on and tested to make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel.
The vehicle is then ready for you to drive away. All of it is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to go to a garage, and when it has been caught early, long-term damage is very rare.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Stockwitch Cross is a separate problem
The fault isn't the same, though the opening rule is — never crank it — if what got in was AdBlue instead of petrol. Petrol does two things to diesel: dilutes it, and strips out the protection the system depends on. Urea in water, AdBlue, and in a diesel tank that causes rust and deposits.
Our technicians handle both, and AdBlue removal in Stockwitch Cross has its own page with the details — including why it's usually the more serious of the two.
Stockwitch Cross pricing for a petrol-in-diesel drain
We cannot put one figure on this page frankly, as the job isn't one job. What moves it:
- Has it been started or driven? Nothing else matters for as much.
- Wrong fuel in, against what the tank holds — that proportion.
- Which went in: unleaded or AdBlue.
- Whether a van can sensibly reach the car and work on it, which depends on where the vehicle is.
The car, the amount, 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 is fine.
Things our engineers hear about petrol in diesel around Stockwitch Cross
Fuel drains on a Stockwitch Cross petrol station forecourt
A fair portion of this work happens there, so yes. Tell us which one you're at when you phone and we will tell you if our technicians can work there. With the station's consent we visit Texaco and the other forecourts nearby all the time.
Is there a sensible amount of petrol in a diesel?
Whether the motor has run matters much more, though the ratio matters too, rather than the litres. A nearly empty tank with five litres in it, against a full one with the same five: different scenarios, definitely. Either way, the work required comes down to one thing, which is if the fuel system has had that mixture sucked through it.
I drove it after putting petrol in my diesel. What now?
Switch off somewhere sensible, and keep it that way after you stop. Driving moves the trouble along — out of your tank, into the pump and injectors. People fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one genuinely valuable thing left to you isn't restarting the vehicle.
My warranty — does a fuel drain void it?
It's not a change, and so a drain and flush carried out correctly doesn't invalidate a manufacturer's warranty. An argument over a warranty is likelier to come from running a diesel on petrol — so leave it switched off.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. Two-stroke oil is an old fix for a distinct problem and it does not put back what petrol has thinned. Petrol stays in that tank after that, whatever else goes in, and your pump gets no respite from it.
Do I need a main dealer for petrol in a diesel?
Not at all. Our engineers drain and clean the car wherever it is, so there is no need to take it to a main dealer.
Waiting next to it?
Don't switch your engine back on.
If you have already driven the vehicle, pull in somewhere safe, switch it off and keep it off. Cold, stationary, going nowhere: that's the best position to be in. Drivers fear this far more than they need to.
At the roadside, on the forecourt or at home — call-out fuel draining around Stockwitch Cross and throughout Somerset.