Stone: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
Don't fire up the engine. While the fuel is still in your tank and the engine has not turned over, a drain is nearly always all it takes — and that is settled in the following few minutes, not by how much got in. Petrol in Diesel drains and flushes misfuelled cars where they stand, throughout Stone and the remainder of Kent, on the forecourt, by the roadside or on a private drive. We shall explain what the next part is. Ring us — this happens before all else.
What now? Petrol in a diesel, in turn
- Give a petrol motor diesel and it will usually not run at all, so the motorist stops there and so does the wear. Feed a diesel petrol and the engine starts, it ticks over, it pulls away — fine enough for a couple of miles. Motorists have that backwards, which is the part they get wrong about petrol in a diesel in particular. So do not fire it up. And if started, never believe it: the fuel system is wearing down while you drive.
- Two things, diesel: it combusts, and on the way through it keeps that high-pressure fuel pump and injectors lubricated. Petrol only handles the one. Which is why the ignition is left off as well — turn it on and you often prime your system, and that's petrol leaving that tank for exactly those parts.
- Don't tip diesel on top to dilute it. A diesel fuel system will not tolerate petrol by percentage the way that advice presumes, and topping up takes out nothing — it simply hands you a larger tank of the same mixture. The grade makes no difference either: super unleaded is still petrol.
- Wait where you are if you safely can. A car that hasn't shifted is the quickest one to sort, and we would sooner travel to an awkward location than have it started. If you're parked on the verge on Stone Place Road, put those hazards on and leave the vehicle there.
- Before you ring, have your position. Anything closest to you with a name on it, plus a postcode that starts DA9 9 — that is what determines whether our van arrives or circles.
- Phone 0333 366 0103. Anticipate three queries — what got in, about how many litres, plus whether the engine has been run. Those answers shape everything that follows.
Phone before you fetch the car. Petrol into a diesel Volkswagen Golf this morning, and it at Stone Crossing ever since? Then the day has taken nothing from you: fuel sitting in a tank is idle, and any damage happened on the journey in, when your pump was drawing diesel that petrol had thinned.
Each start primes your fuel system and draws more of the mixture out of your tank and towards your pump — which is why a vehicle shunted twice into a roomier space has silently grown into a bigger job than one left precisely where it stopped. So if our technicians cannot work alongside your diesel Renault Megane, we shift the vehicle without firing it. None of that is fussiness about a handful of seconds of running. Car parks like the one outside Asda our engineers visit often, and your fuel is seldom the awkward part: that bay is. Motors either side, a trolley shelter behind, sometimes a height barrier at the way in determining whether a van can reach you at all. Tell us how hemmed in you are, and which way the car faces.
This is what a job in the car park at The Bull normally looks like. Our technicians arrive at your car, ask what got in, about how much, and whether the motor has run since — those three answers determine most of the work. Then the polluted mix comes out of your tank, the fuel lines get cleaned, and the filter comes off where your BMW 3 Series has a replaceable one. New diesel goes in and your system is primed. Then our engineers fire it up, make sure it runs correctly, and you drive away.
Three things help when you ring from close to St Mary the Virgin, Stone Parish Church: which side the filler is on, whether our van can pull up next to without blocking the road, and whether the motor has run since you filled up. On-street is the most common location our engineers work, and so the location itself is seldom the issue — we would far rather deal with a narrow parking spot than with a motor that has been driven to somewhere more convenient. We will drain your Dacia Duster, change the filter where there is a serviceable one, flush the fuel lines and put clean fuel through the whole circuit, as by this point the worst of that is resting in the lines instead of in that tank.
Turn off where you have stopped, and don't restart it to find somewhere better — close to Stone Parish Council or anywhere at all. Clattering, an uneven idle, white smoke and a limp throttle are a misfuelled diesel Peugeot 3008 telling you what's wrong.
Forecourt draining for petrol in a diesel
A good part of the work ends up done at the pump, since that is where it usually starts. The drain normally gets done there and then. Still on the forecourt at Asda? Given the owner's agreement, that's somewhere we work, and often.
At a forecourt, it is stopped with the motor never fired, and nowhere else does that. The few seconds between reading your receipt and reaching for your key settle how much requires rinsing. Anywhere other than a forecourt — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — the car was fired up and moved to get there, so fuel was drawn from that tank, through your filter and into your high-pressure pump. That means the fuel lines and the fuel filter need flushing as well as the tank. It's not a calamity, and our technicians can still put it right where your car is.
The attendants will normally happily wheel the vehicle out from the petrol pump so the next customer can get through. That's worth doing. Cranking the car to roll four car lengths isn't.
Stone and the places next to it
As a village, Stone has a routine visit, while the areas close by come with it on that same trip: Horns Cross and Bluewater, Greenhithe and Crossways, Swanscombe.
If yours isn't on this list it doesn't mean we never come — there are separate pages for the majority of towns around Kent, and the ones named above are merely the nearest neighbours. Call us and enquire instead of guessing, especially where you are on the boundary or somewhere your satnav misreads.
This map is the area this page covers. Roadside, forecourt, drive, car park: the lot is ground our technicians work on, and none of that requires your car to travel to us.
Roadside call-outs around Stone
Some drivers get no sensible spot to pull in at all. Set off, then noticed? Landed along the verge beside Hedge Place Road, or sat in some lay-by with the hazard lights going? That's a normal call here. Not an unusual one.
Out of the car when it is not wise to wait there, beside it when it is. Don't fire it up to reach a safer location. It'll go — a diesel on petrol usually obliges — and each mile of obliging draws the mix deeper into your fuel system. We'll bring our van to a difficult place without any bother, and for your car that's far better than driving on.
A few miles on petrol in a diesel: now what?
under 3 miles from Stone, the M25 is what matters here. Lost power, a lumpy idle, some smoke: those are the signs when they appear, rather than a neat stop — and a wrongly fuelled diesel will often get you onto it and some way along before anything feels wrong at all.
The first sensible junction is the one to take. Turn off there, and leave the restarting alone. Suppose the worst of it on a long drive. Anything close to the under 25 miles to the closest city, and the petrol has been through the filter, through the pump, through the injectors. Say so when you call. What our technicians bring alters.
Stone itself
Stone is a village in Kent, situated on the lakeside at an elevation of 37 metres, with a mix of flat housing and other residential properties. Stone lies close to the major urban centre of London, approximately 16 miles away, and is near other places such as Horns Cross and Greenhithe. Stone has a population of around 1386 people and is also near the large shopping centre at Bluewater. Stone is part of the wider South East region of England.
Once we get to you around Stone: what follows
- Three things get asked before any quote — your fuel that was put in, the amount, and whether anything has been run since. Each answer changes the work.
- Out flows the polluted fuel.
- Fuel lines are purged through and your filter cleaned, leaving nothing in the system that caused any of this.
- Your system gets bled, on clean diesel.
- When it is turned on, our engineers check it runs properly on clean diesel.
The vehicle is then ready for you to drive away. Our technicians do all of this wherever the vehicle has come to a stop, which means it never needs to go to a garage, and if it has been noticed early, it's very rare for there to be long-term damage.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Stone is a separate problem
If what was put in was AdBlue instead of petrol, the opening step is the same — don't crank it — yet the fault isn't. Petrol does two things to diesel: dilutes it, and strips out the lubrication the fuel system relies on. Rust and deposits are what a diesel tank ends up with instead, since AdBlue is urea in water.
Usually the more serious of the two, AdBlue — and the details sits on its own Stone page. Both are ours to handle.
Budgeting for a petrol-in-diesel fuel drain in Stone
Our engineers can't put one figure on this page honestly, because this job isn't one job. What shifts it:
- This is the big one: whether the engine has been started, or driven.
- How much of the wrong fuel went in, weighed against how much your tank can hold.
- The kind of liquid in the tank, unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where is it? And can a technician reach it and work there safely?
The car, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back clear rather than as a range. If it is not pressing — the vehicle is at home and going nowhere — works too.
Petrol in diesel queries from Stone drivers
At a petrol station around Stone, can you do a fuel drain there?
Plenty of what our technicians do gets done nowhere else. So yes. Tell us which one you are at when you ring and we will tell you whether we can work there. With the site's permission we attend Esso and the other forecourts around town regularly.
A couple of litres of petrol in a diesel — too much?
Litres aren't the yardstick. Proportion is, and far more than either, it matters whether anything has been run. Five litres in an almost empty tank is a distinct situation from five in a full one — but either way, the thing that decides how much work is needed is whether that blend has been pulled through the fuel system.
I drove the car after putting petrol in my diesel. Now what?
Stop somewhere safe, turn off, and keep it off. Driving takes the issue along — out of your tank, into the pump and injectors. Drivers fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one really valuable thing left to you isn't restarting the car.
Is a fuel drain going to void my warranty?
It is not a change, so a drain then flush carried out correctly doesn't cancel a manufacturer's warranty. What is likelier to start a dispute is a diesel that has been run on petrol. One more reason for the engine to stay off.
Adding two-stroke oil, then driving home
No. It belongs to a distinct problem from a different era, and petrol has thinned something no oil of that kind restores. Your tank still has petrol in it later on, and the pump still has to cope with it.
Main dealers and petrol in a diesel
You don't need one. The vehicle is drained and flushed wherever it is, with no need to take it to a franchised dealer.
Still with your vehicle?
Switched off is how the car remains.
Turn it off somewhere sensible then leave it off, if you have already driven it. A still, cold motor is the best place to be in, and this is recoverable from a lot more commonly than people assume.
Call-out fuel draining in Stone and throughout Kent — at the roadside, on the forecourt or at home.