Tower Hill: Put Petrol in a Diesel Car?
With your tank still holding the fuel and your engine not yet started, nearly every job takes only a drain, so keep the motor off. That outcome is determined in the minutes straight after the fill-up, rather than by the amount that went in. All over Tower Hill and the remainder of Merseyside, Petrol in Diesel drains the car and cleans it where it sits, whether by a roadside, on a drive or at a forecourt. Phone so our engineers will explain what comes after that before you do any more.
Petrol in a diesel: what to try first
- Whenever you drive, the pump and your injectors wear down. That's why you don't crank it, and why you never trust it once it has started. The thing about petrol in a diesel in particular — the point motorists get wrong — is that it pulls away happily for the first mile or two. Diesel in a petrol engine generally cannot run at all, which stops the driver and stops the wear with them. This one lets you drive on.
- Turning the ignition on often primes the system, and priming is what moves petrol out of your tank and into your pump and injectors. Those are the parts diesel keeps oiled on its way through, before it burns. Petrol manages the burning and none of the oiling. Leave the car's ignition be.
- Topping up takes out nothing. It hands you a bigger tank of the same mix, because a diesel fuel system won't tolerate petrol by percentage as that guidance implies — so don't pour diesel on top to thin it. Grade is beside the point too: super unleaded is petrol.
- We'd rather drive to an awkward place than have it started — so if you sensibly can, stay still. Nothing is simpler to deal with than a car that hasn't shifted. On the verge on Headbolt Lane, that means hazards on and keep the car.
- Before you phone, gather your location. Anything next to you with a name on it, plus a postcode that starts L33 1 — that's what determines whether the van turns up or circles.
- Dial 0333 366 0103. Say what got in, approximately how much, plus if the motor has fired. These three answers determine the full job.
Quarter past eight, a fast top-up on the trip in, and you realise at about eleven — by which time the diesel Volkswagen Passat has been sitting at Headbolt Lane for three hours. Phone then leave it exactly where it is. The trip in is the bit that is key most, as diesel has two roles on its way through an engine: it burns, and before it combusts it lubricates that high-pressure pump and the injectors. Petrol manages the first and not the second. So those couple of miles were travelled with the pump working on a liquid that had shed a lot of the protection it is designed around — which is why the thing our technicians ask is how far you went, not how long your vehicle has been parked.
We're in car parks like the one at Morrisons a lot, and it is almost never your fuel that complicates them. It's the bay. Motors both sides. Trolleys stacked up behind. Sometimes a height bar at the entrance, which decides if our van gets to you at all. So mention how hemmed in you are when you phone, and which way your car is pointing. If there is no clearance to work next to the BMW 3 Series, our engineers move it without the motor. That isn't fussiness over a couple of seconds: starts prime things, fuel comes out of the tank towards the pump, and a vehicle shifted twice for a nicer spot is quietly a harder job than one no one touched.
You will be urged to shift it clear of that gateway and sort it out later. Don't. On the zig-zags at Ravenscroft Community Primary School, a wrongly fuelled Mercedes C-Class running on diesel is in the way, and that is all it is. Start it three more times being helpful and you have turned a tank into a fuel system: every start primes your lines, every prime pulls more petrol through the filter toward your pump. Let them grumble. Ring us.
Don't risk it. The drive home from The Premier is entirely possible, which is exactly the trouble — a weakened tank doesn't stop a diesel starting or pulling away, it just grinds the parts your fuel is meant to protect. Phone, then let the Audi A3 stay where it sits.
Purged, not cleared — that is what a diesel Seat Leon which got as far as St Mary's Church needs. Running a diesel puts the blend into your filter, your lines, the pump and the rail, none of which empties with your tank, and so by now that tank holds the smaller part of the trouble.
Can petrol be pumped out of your diesel at a forecourt?
Most of the job begins at a forecourt, which means a large portion of it ends up finished at one. The drain generally happens right there. Still on the forecourt at Morrisons? Given the owner's permission, that is somewhere our engineers work, and routinely.
Nowhere except a forecourt can the mistake be halted with your motor still untouched. Everywhere else — a car park, a driveway, a lay-by — the car was fired up and moved to get there, which means fuel was drawn from your tank, through the filter and into the high-pressure pump. That's not a catastrophe, and we can still put it right where it is. It does mean the lines and your filter need rinsing as well as the tank, and that's decided by the few seconds between checking the receipt and going for your key.
The attendants will normally help you wheel the car away from the petrol pump so the next customer can get by. That's worth doing. Firing the car just to shift four car lengths is not.
Areas our vans cover in Tower Hill
These same rounds bring us to Northwood, Kirkby, Kirkby Park, Melling Mount and Waddicar along with Tower Hill, which is a residential suburb.
Our engineers do come. The names above are just the immediate neighbours, and a page is there for the majority of locations in Merseyside, and so an absence from the list isn't an absence from our coverage. Ring us to check rather than guessing, particularly if you are on a border or somewhere your satnav misreads.
The area the page covers appears on the map. Kerbside, forecourt, driveway, car park: the lot is territory our technicians work on, and none of that asks the vehicle to travel to us.
Stranded by the kerb somewhere in Tower Hill?
Some drivers have no suitable place to stop whatsoever. Hazards on in a lay-by somewhere, or pulled onto the verge beside Fallowfield as you worked it out after setting off — our technicians take that call regularly enough that it is the normal kind.
Remain with the car if it's safe to wait there, and out of the vehicle if it's not. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol draws that blend further into the system — and oblige it frequently will, which is why your engine doesn't get restarted to limp somewhere better. Carrying on causes the vehicle far more harm than our van coming out to a difficult location, and that's no trouble for us.
Petrol in a diesel, but the motor has moved
under 3 miles from Tower Hill, your M57 is what matters now. A loss of power, an uneven idle, some smoke: those are the signs when they arrive, rather than a clean stop — and a misfilled diesel will frequently get you onto it and some distance along before anything feels wrong at all.
The next sensible exit is the one to take. Switch off there, then leave the restarting alone. On a longer drive — anything approaching the under 10 miles to the nearest city — take it the contamination has been through the filter, the pump and the injectors, and mention it when you ring. It alters what we bring.
Tower Hill itself
Tower Hill is a suburban area in Merseyside, situated near the River Alt and close to the city of Liverpool. Tower Hill has a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities, with nearby Northwood and Kirkby providing additional services. Tower Hill sits at an elevation of 33 metres, with the surrounding landscape influenced by its riverside setting. Tower Hill is located approximately 6.9 miles from Liverpool city centre, making it a commuter-friendly location.
The visit in Tower Hill, step by step
- We ask first, price after. What was put in? How much? Has your engine run? Those replies change what the work actually is.
- Away goes the tainted fuel.
- Lines rinsed, filter cleared. Whatever is left afterwards is not the thing that caused the problem.
- We pour clean diesel in and prime your system.
- Our technicians fire it up and check it runs correctly on new diesel.
After that it's ready to drive away. Our technicians do all of this wherever the car has ended up, which means it never has to go to a workshop, and when it has been caught quickly, it's very unusual for there to be long-term damage.
AdBlue in your diesel tank by mistake, around Tower Hill?
The fault isn't the same, though the opening rule is — do not crank it — if what went in was AdBlue rather than petrol. Diluted diesel, and no protection left for the system that relies on it. That is petrol. AdBlue? Urea dissolved in water. Pour that in with the diesel and you get rust instead, plus build-up.
Both are ours. There's a separate Tower Hill page for AdBlue removal, with the detail on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
Paying for a petrol-in-diesel drain in Tower Hill
One number would not be fair here, since this is not one job. These are the things that shift it:
- Started? Driven? Either answer matters more than anything else on this list.
- How much of the wrong fuel was put in, set against how much that tank holds.
- Which went in: petrol or AdBlue.
- Access: the vehicle's position, and if working on it there's sensible for a van.
Tell us what your car is, how much went in, and whether your engine has run. A firm answer comes back, not a range. For the car at home that is going nowhere and isn't urgent, is fine too.
Petrol in diesel questions from Tower Hill drivers
Can you do a fuel drain at a petrol station in Tower Hill?
Yes — forecourts are where a big part of this gets done. Consent from the site is the condition. Given that, a forecourt like another forecourt nearby is somewhere we are often enough, along with the rest of them locally — so name yours on the phone and you will hear if working there is possible.
Is there a safe quantity of petrol in a diesel?
Whether the engine has run counts far more, though the proportion matters too, rather than the litres. Five litres into an almost dry tank isn't five into a full one, no. But both land on the same query in the end: has that mixture been pulled right through, or has it not?
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the vehicle. What next?
Switch off somewhere sensible, and keep it that way after you stop. Driving shifts the problem along — out of the tank, into the pump and injectors. Drivers fear it a good deal more than the recovery rate warrants, mind. The one truly valuable thing left to you is not restarting the vehicle.
Will a fuel drain void my warranty?
No. Carried out correctly, clearing and flushing is no modification at all, and the warranty from your manufacturer is untouched by it. What's likelier to start an argument is a diesel that has been run on petrol. One more reason for your engine to remain off.
Could I put some two-stroke in and just drive?
What petrol has thinned isn't put back by two-stroke oil, which is an old workaround for a different problem. So no. Your pump still has to put up with it, because that tank still has petrol in it after that.
A main dealer for petrol in a diesel — necessary?
Not at all. Our technicians drain and clean the car wherever it is, so there is no need to bring it to a franchised dealer.
Still with the car?
Shut off is the way the car stays.
If you have already driven the vehicle, pull in somewhere safe, turn it off and leave it off. This is recoverable from far more frequently than drivers fear, and a stationary, cold motor is the best place to be in.
Draining misfuelled motors, Tower Hill and the rest of Merseyside, wherever they are. Roadside. Forecourt. Home.