Wrong fuel in your car?

Provided you act quickly, you’re very unlikely to suffer any serious damage. In the great majority of cases the car is up and running again as soon as we’ve drained the fuel. It’s best if you haven’t started the car. The longer the wrong fuel remains in your tank, fuel lines and engine, the more damage it does — so get it removed as soon as you can.

Usually not, if you stopped as soon as the car ran badly. A short distance on the fuel left in the lines is often survived without harm. The risk grows the further you drive, because the wrong fuel keeps circulating through the pump, filter and high-pressure lines. Stop driving, and call us — we’ll remove it and check it over.

Both are bad. In the short term, petrol in a diesel usually stalls the engine or makes it run rough and rattly. Diesel in a petrol makes it lose power and run flat. Left in, petrol can corrode and de-lubricate a diesel’s high-pressure pump and injectors — but the worst cases are rare and take a fair bit of driving to reach. In every case the cost of draining the wrong fuel is tiny next to the damage of leaving it in.

It’s never dumped. A licence is required to transport and store the fuel we remove, so it’s held securely and safely, and is ultimately re-refined and returned to the fuel supply chain. Disposal is fully compliant and included in the job.

Usually not. Some dealers treat a misfuel as a windfall and replace expensive components unnecessarily — we’ve heard of cars collected from forecourts that hadn’t even been started. Most garages don’t keep the specialist draining equipment we use and find it simpler to call us. The cost of draining the fuel is tiny next to needless component replacement.

It’s not recommended. The engine tends to run poorly, you may trigger dashboard lights that need clearing, and it may not restart when cold. You risk corroding hoses and seals and damaging fuel pumps. As the old saying goes — if you’re in a hole, stop digging. A full drain is usually the best and cheapest option.

On cars older than about 30 years, sometimes — if you don’t mind the taste. But modern cars have anti-siphon devices and saddle-shaped tanks with internal baffles that a normal hosepipe can’t reach, so it takes specialist equipment to do the job properly. There’s also the matter of disposing of the removed fuel legally, which we handle for you.

The symptoms of contaminated fuel are similar to a misfuel — in fact the wrong fuel is just one type of contamination. The cure is the same: fully drain the tank, fuel lines and engine, do any reset needed, and fill up with clean fuel. We deal with all of these every day.

Usually no. Fuel doesn’t “sit” or condense in a fuel filter — during a drain the filter is flushed by pumping clean fuel through it to purge it. A replacement filter costs only a few pounds and takes minutes, so be wary of inflated bills for it.