Put Petrol in a Diesel Car in West Hill?
If you have not turned on your engine yet, do not. A fuel drain and nothing else is nearly always what a motor requires while the petrol is still sitting in that tank and the motor has not been started, which is why it is the next few minutes that matter, not how much went in. Petrol in Diesel travels to your car wherever it has stopped in West Hill or the remainder of Devon, on the forecourt, at the roadside or on a private drive, and drains and cleans it there. A single ring our way will be sufficient: our technicians shall tell you what happens next. Make that straight away.
Your next five steps: petrol in a diesel
- Don't fire it up — and never rely on it if it fires up. Here is the part people get wrong about petrol in a diesel specifically. A petrol engine fed diesel generally just can't run, so the driver stops and the wear halts with them. A diesel fed petrol normally starts, idles and moves off perfectly well for a couple of miles. It's not okay. It is wearing out the fuel system while you drive.
- Diesel burns, and before it burns it protects — your injection pump, its injectors. Petrol manages only the burning. So leave the ignition be too: flicking it on is commonly all it takes to prime the system, and priming carries petrol from your tank into exactly those components.
- Do not add diesel on top to dilute it. A diesel fuel system does not cope with petrol by percentage as that advice presumes, and topping up removes nothing — it only leaves you a bigger tank of the same mixture. The octane makes no difference either: super unleaded is simply petrol.
- Sit tight if it's sensible to. Hazards on, engine off, leave the car. Wherever you have stopped — the verge on Beech Park, anywhere — a difficult location for us trumps a started motor, and nothing is easier for us to handle than a car that never shifted.
- Keep your position prepared before you ring. A postcode that starts EX11 1 and whatever is next to you with a name on it is the difference between our van showing up and a van circling.
- Three replies determine your whole call-out: the stuff you tipped in, the ballpark volume involved, plus if it has been running since. The line is 0333 366 0103.
The trip back would about double it, for no reason at all. One commute has already put a real load of petrol-thinned diesel through the high-pressure pump of that Volkswagen Passat. So keep it where it stands. Phone us from the platform if that is easier — no one needs you standing over your car at Whimple whilst our technicians work, and tonight beats finding out on Monday.
We're in car parks like the one outside Sainsbury's a lot, and it is hardly ever your fuel that complicates them. It is that bay. Vehicles both sides. Trolleys stacked up behind. Occasionally a height limit at the way in, which determines whether our van gets to you at all. So say how hemmed in you are when you ring, and which way the vehicle is pointing. If there is no room to work beside that Skoda Octavia, our technicians roll it without the engine. That isn't fussiness over a handful of seconds: starts prime things, blend comes out of your tank towards your pump, and a car moved twice for a roomier bay is silently a bigger job than one no one touched.
The parts that should be getting oiled are wearing down instead, and your vehicle gives no sign of it: a diesel on a weakened tank starts and pulls away quite happily. Try the journey home from the pub in the village? Don't. Ring us then leave the Peugeot 308 where it is.
Out there fine, back gutless. If that was the trip to Prickly Pear Blossoms Park, look at the tank. Diesel gets weakened by petrol, and thin fuel slips past the fine tolerances meant to build injection pressure — so every extra mile your diesel Nissan Qashqai covered, the less pressure it held onto. Somewhere sensible, switch off, phone us.
We rinse the lines rather than only clearing that tank, and the reason is that weakened fuel has already got to your filter and your pump: it was a start and a drive, however short. The drive truly helps — pulled off the forecourt, receipt read, a diesel Audi A4 parked up near West Hill Village Hall a couple of hundred yards later is about as well as this goes once your engine has turned. Phone us and leave it off.
Forecourt drains for petrol in a diesel
Forecourts are where the work mostly begins, and where a big share of that closes. Our technicians work on petrol station forecourts all the time, with the station's agreement, and so if you're still at Esso that's typically where the drain takes place.
A forecourt is the one setting this can be halted before the engine has fired. Anywhere else — a car park, a drive, a lay-by — your car was switched on and moved to get there, which means fuel was pulled from the tank, through the fuel filter then into the high-pressure fuel pump. That is not a disaster, and our technicians can still deal with it where it stands. It does mean the lines and your filter need cleaning as well as your tank, and that's decided by the few seconds between reading your receipt and going for the keys.
The attendants will usually offer to push the car clear of the pump so the next customer can get through. That is worth doing. Four vehicle lengths is not worth a restart.
Parts our vans reach around West Hill
West Hill is a rural village, and so our vans head out to it and to anywhere by it on the usual rounds: Higher Metcombe, Fluxton, Allercombe, Metcombe and Marsh Green.
Not on this list? That means nothing. The places above are simply the closest few, and nearly all towns around Devon have a page of their own somewhere on the site. Near a border, or somewhere the satnav gets wrong? Phone to enquire rather than presuming.
See our map for the ground shown on this page. Our technicians work roadside, on forecourts, on driveways and at car parks across all of it, and your vehicle never needs to travel to us.
Stranded at the roadside in West Hill
Not everybody has the chance to pull over somewhere safe. If you realised after setting off and landed along the verge of West Hill Road, or at a lay-by somewhere with your hazards flashing, that is a normal call for us and not an odd one.
Whether you wait beside the motor or step away from it depends on whether sitting nearby seems sensible. Every mile a diesel obliges you for on petrol pulls that blend further into the system — and oblige it often will, which is why your motor does not get restarted to limp somewhere better. However difficult the location, it's no bother for us to come to it, and that's a lot better for your car than driving on.
Driven it already? Pull in, then check this
This is where the local M5 comes in — under 10 miles from West Hill. A misfilled diesel will usually get you onto it and some distance along before anything seems wrong, and the signs when they arrive are generally a drop in power, a rough idle and some smoke instead of a tidy stop.
Don't start it to move it. Come off at the next safe junction then switch off. Long trip? Anything approaching the under 10 miles to the nearest city and you should presume the lot — filter, pump, injectors, all of that got to by the contamination. Say that on the call, because it alters what goes in our van.
About West Hill
West Hill is a rural village in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of around 105 metres, approximately 9 miles from Exeter. West Hill has a population of around 955 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. West Hill is close to nearby places such as Higher Metcombe, Fluxton, and Allercombe, and is located in the South West region of England, about 148 miles from London.
What we do when our technicians reach you in West Hill
- Our engineers check what went in, how much, and whether your motor has run. The replies alter the work, which is why we ask before giving a price.
- Our technicians drain the tank of the polluted mixture.
- Fuel lines are rinsed through and the fuel filter cleared, leaving nothing in the fuel system that started any of this.
- Your system gets bled, on fresh diesel.
- Once it is turned on, we check it runs correctly on fresh diesel.
The vehicle is then ready for you to drive away. All of this is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a garage, and when it has been caught early, lasting damage is very unusual.
West Hill AdBlue removal is a separate job
AdBlue instead of petrol? Then the opening step is unchanged — the motor remains off — while this issue under it's a different one altogether. The lubrication a fuel system relies on is stripped away by petrol, which thins your diesel. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water, and in a diesel tank it causes rust and build-up instead.
Both are ours. There's a separate West Hill page for AdBlue removal, with the details on it — including the reasons it often turns out to be the worse of the two.
West Hill costs for a petrol-in-diesel drain
Truthfully, no single figure belongs on a page like this. The job differs. Here's what varies it:
- Has it been started or driven? Nothing else matters for as much.
- Wrong fuel in, against what your tank takes — that ratio.
- Which got in: unleaded or AdBlue.
- Where your car is, and whether a technician can safely get to and work on it.
The vehicle, the quantity, whether it has run — give us those and the answer comes back clear and not as a range. Car at home, going nowhere, nothing pressing about it — is good for that.
Petrol in diesel: common queries around West Hill
Fuel drains on a West Hill petrol station forecourt
Plenty of what our engineers do gets done nowhere else. So yes. Routinely, provided the site agrees: Texaco, plus every other forecourt nearby. Say on the phone where exactly you have stopped. Whether our engineers can work in that spot is something our technicians 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 the engine 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 required is whether that mixture has been drawn through the system.
I put petrol in my diesel and drove the car. What next?
Turn off somewhere sensible, and keep it that way after you stop. Driving is what moves the issue from the tank into your pump and injectors — but it's recoverable much more commonly than motorists expect, and the single most helpful thing you can do now is not restart the car.
Fuel drains and manufacturer warranties
A manufacturer's warranty withstands a drain then flush done to a proper standard, which is no alteration at all. Running a diesel on petrol is the thing more likely to cause an argument with one, which is another reason to leave it switched off.
Can I just add two-stroke oil and drive home?
No. Two-stroke oil is an old fix for a distinct problem and it does not put back what petrol has diluted. Your tank still has petrol in it afterwards, and the pump still has to put up with it.
Does petrol in a diesel have to go to a main dealer?
You don't need one. The vehicle is drained and cleaned wherever it is, with no need to take it to a franchised dealer.
You, and the vehicle, still together?
The motor stays off.
Driven it already? Then somewhere safe, stop, switch off, and no restarting the car afterwards. Cold and still, a car is in the best place available — and motorists fear this a lot more than the recovery rate warrants.
On-site fuel draining around West Hill and throughout Devon — at the kerbside, on the forecourt or at home.