Its that time again, someone somewhere says something and before you know it the whole country is out buying fuel.

This week has been our busiest ever, lots of people filling up cars with the wrong fuel, and its not 20 quiders either – its whole tanks.

If you are looking for places that still have petrol in london or looking for petrol stations that still have fuel then I hope you find it, driving around I cover a large area across london and the southeast and the one thing I have noticed is that if there is a que for fuel then the british public can’t resist joining it, but in the countryside if there is no que – they dont que and buy as normal, herd mentality I guess

Me? I stocked up, we get very busy if there is “a fuel crisis” as misfuellings tend to peak when fuel buying peaks (paydays etc), but we will have a quiet patch after the dust settles as everyone will be running around with full tanks and not needing to top up for a while

but the way these things go is in fits and starts and for the rest of the summer we can be sure that the “fuel crisis” will be rearing its head a few more times this year.

Tanker drivers? striking on 45K a year? who do they think they are – fueldrainers?

chances are you need a fuel drain, or just had one if you are reading this.

the cost of a fuel drain from an independent fuel draining company  is between £145 & £250, the price depends on

1) distance from drainer

2) type of car (some cars require more complex drains such as volvo xc90 or twin tankd BMW’s & Mercedes, some Audi’s etc

3) whether the car has been driven on the wrong fuel and needs a fuel system flush, which is a straightforward procedure but tankes longer than just draining the tank.

the time of day or night does not really come into it, unless its a very unsocial hour, weekends, public holidays etc are all the same as a normal weekday.

a dealer may charge £4000 to £9000 for major fuel system and engine rebuilding, which in my opinion is mostly unnecessary.

The AA does do fuel drains and have a fleet of mobile fuel draining vans, they do charge members and cost about £230, they are quite often very busy and have long waiting period

The RAC have a few fuel draining vans but I havent seen many in the south east, they used to sub contract out most of their jobs to garages and fuel draining companies.

some dealerships will charge between 400 and 800 for a drain that does not involve pulling the engine to bits, but for some reason they often say they will take the tank off and swill it out.

your friendly local garage will charge the same as a fuel draining company, but you normally have to get the car to them

and of course you can do one yourself, or get a mechanically minded friend to help out.

Surely someone else has noticed the drip feeding of news stories based around freedom of information requests to various police and local authorities and how often they misfuel.

I was lost on google tonight and instead of watching the latest you tube potato cannon videos, I was researching wrong fuel (sad I know), after reading 2 or 3  ”news” articles about wrong fuel and the police/ambulance/local authorities etc, I thought there must be a bit of a pattern emerging, so I started sniffing and ended up on a “freedom of info” site and found that some guy called  ”Nick Panchaud” has made 838 Freedom of Information requests to government and local authority agencies, housing associations, fire brigades and all sorts, his modus operandi Is to send in the usual cut and paste FOI requests, and chase them up with the usual cut and paste nudges.

once he gets his FOI information back he releases a news story based around ….. some device he is selling that prevents motorist using the wrong fuel.

I can think of better ways to market a new product than asking the overstretched public sector to  trawl through years of vehicle service records, receipts, etc..

The Emergency services do a tough job, as it is, and yes they do occasionally misfuel, but no more than anyone else, the Met got a particularly hard bashing for this, but when you consider how many vehicles they have, it really is nothing to write home about.

We have attended many blue light misfuels, during the London Riots last year one of our drivers attended a Welsh police van in Croydon that had been misfueld with 10 armour suited riot police on board and a menacing crowd gathering across the road, our driver  didn’t even have the heart to charge them for a drainout, (and he didnt want to be hanging around to run a credit card either).

As for the misfuel prevention devices there are many of  them on the market and most of them work, halfords have about 4 different types in stock, the best one I know of is the annoying little robot that you stick to the fuel cap that starts yelling “diesel” “diesel” as soon as you open it.  - if you put the wrong fuel in after that you have no business leaving the house let alone driving a car.

see  http://davidcoveney.com/1928/freedom-of-information-is-abuse/#comment-1350 for further details about freedom of information abuse

The Freedom of information act is a powerful tool and used for the right reasons it is a good thing, abuses – especially commercially driven, bring a bad name to FOI, and tie up already overwhelmed public services…….. and  (time to put the boot in) as for his diesel key there are cheaper and better alternatives on the market

bit political for a fuel drainer eh?

We work all over london and can get to most jobs within 30 minutes between our 3 mobile fuel drianing vans.

Last week a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless (Darren), decided to save himself 10 quid, and pushed a customers car 200 yards to get it out of a congestion zone before he drained it, – darrens van was on the other side of the big C.

Darrens excuse was it was downhill, but the truth is darren would still have done it if it was uphill, the best part was the customer was sitting in the car steering, – it made his day!

We normally push cars every day, mostly off of petrol station forecourts and away from the pumps so its not that unusual.

The hardest was a 7.5 ton Iveco, I did that one myself but had to summon help from some passing gents, the easiest was a fiat 500, – a “one hander push”

If you need a fuel drain we service London, Surrey, sussex & kent, we have a van at junction 10 of the m23, another in croydon, and one in west london, we can do all makes and types of cars/vans and get you back on the road in 30 minutes – even if your car has driven and broken down becuase of wrong fuel.

If you need us, call us 24 hours a day 7 days a week, even at 3am on sundays a sleepy fuel drainer will arise from a slumber to come and help you out! -

Take care

The fuelman

and the winner is…………………. Mercedes 320 CDI !!! commonly used in the E class from 95 to 2002,  technically known as the 24 valve 6 pot “OM613″

These diesels are so rock hard – they could probably run on straight petrol!

I know this better than most since I own one, and have “recycled” mixed fuel into it, it drives perfectly and has done for 15.000 miles on contaminated fuel.

The downside is the exhuast smells funny, it doesn’t like starting on cold mornings and 4 out of the 6 injectors are not operating as they should which causes over-fuelling, not that Ime too botherd since overfuelling manifests itself in increased fuel consumption.

Anyone who knows that model of mercedes will be familier with the rust they suffer and mine is no different so I am happy to sacrifice it for a long term wrong fuel experiment.

I took it into a local mercedes specialist and to his credit he knew it had been run on “wrong fuel” within a couple of minutes, and it had finaly started to succumb to the bad fuel.

The car is still going strong and I suspect it may do so for a long time to come.

The long term effect of running a car for 15.000 miles on wrong fuel are

1) fuel economy dropped from 45 overall mpg to 35.

2) cold starting problems (can of easy start a month)

3) reads an error code if booted hard, fixed by turning off then on

4) 4 out of 6 injectors now playing up (note that some dealers try and say injectors are destroyed as soon as a car has been misfueld)

5) smokes on starting (white)

6) smell of burnt metal from exhuast

7) noise of gas (petrol fumes) gushing out when fuel cap opend

Failed an emission test (fixed with a dose of magic sauce)

9) 1 egr valve burnt to a crisp

I decided to run the car on mixed fuel to try and save a few pennies and also some of the mixed fuel batches we get are mostly diesel and it seemed to good to throw away, I have run the car on as much as 35% petrol and 65% diesel (the car is diesel) and have once needed to drain my own tank.

Having said that one of my friends  decided to try it on a ford transit and it wouldnt even run on a 10% petrol mix, and I have tried a few other cars that played up on 10% petrol in diesel as well

The car I am using is a high miler e320 cdi, with rust issues, and I would guess it to be worth about 1500 quid so I am happy to take the risk and if the car blows up tomorrow I will be about even between fuel saved and the cost of car including fuel related repairs.

I have seen the other end of the spectrum as well, with as little as 2 litres of petrol the inside of some plastic diesel tanks can turn into soft goo that jams up the fuel system and causes all kinds of woe.

Quite often a car does not break down immediately after a misfueling,  assuming you’ve driven to a petrol station to buy your fuel – your cars engine will be hot, and a warm engine copes with wrong fuel much better than a cold engine.

This is the reason we attend so many call outs to peoples houses, or work places, – typically someone would misfuel, drive home without noticing, and then the car would refuse to start again from cold – often the next day.

Don’t worry, if you are reading this and you have a diesel car outside that wont start because of a wrong fueling – it most likely isn’t ruined , it just doesnt like petrol.

Diesel engines work on a compression ignition, the diesel fuel gets squashed in the piston until it auto ignites, this is what gives diesels better efficiency = the fuel burns at exactly the right time every time, Petrol ignites when a spark plug sparks, petrol is refined in such a way that it does not ignite under pressure – but waits for a spark, so the reason your diesel car refuses to start with the wrong fuel is simply because  petrol will not ignite without a spark, so calm down, your car isn’t wrecked – its just got the wrong fuel in it.

In the case of a car that has been driven with the wrong fuel we perform a standard fuel drain and remove the contaminated fuel that is in the tank, we then open the fuel lines as close to the engine as we can and then suck out the remaining bad fuel with our fuel scavenging equiptment, finally we put the correct fuel in and draw this up to the engine with our pump, so when we start the car – the correct fuel is injected into the pistons.

This is where our experience and expertise comes in, there is some magic sauce and know how to quickly and safely getting a car started after a misfuel, if it is done wrong, or by an enthusiastic DIY mechanic –  starter motors can get burnt out, fuel lines not reconnected properly, batteries flattened, or at worst a fire.

If you have misfuelled and your car won’t start, call us, or any experienced fuel draining mechanic, its a simple fix and takes less than an hour.

This is a question allot of people ask if they are unsure of whether or not they have put the wrong fuel in the car.

The answer differs greatly, some cars die before they leave the forecourt, some can drive for 200 miles or even more but refuse to start again from cold, it is best answered by giving you the facts and you can work it out yourself

1) when you misfuel the percentage of wrong fuel matters, the more wrong fuel generally the early the engine refuses to run

2) there is between 500ml and a litre of fuel in the filters and pumps, after misfuelling when you start the engine it will be running on the clean fuel in the system that you had when you arrived at the pump, this can take between 10 seconds and 10 minutes to effect the engine

3) on an already hot engine many diesel cars will drive (albeit rough) with petrol in them, the problem starts when the car is left overnight and refuses to start in the morning, flat batterys after a misfuel is a common occurance from people trying to start the car not knowing they have misfueld.

4) the type of engine matters, sophisticated highly tuned diesel’s are more sensitive to fuelling issues, the sporty volkswagon diesels in particular – but they recover fine after a fuel drain

5) driving at a steady speed with misfuel will get you further than stop start traffic, this is not always the case but what i have seen suggests it

6) taking any chances is not worth the risk, if you misfueld  would you rather get your car drained down on a well lit petrol station forecourt with ample supplies of coffee and cake whilst you wait 45 minutes for a fuel drainer to arrive – and be on the road in 30 minutes after he arrives  , or take the chance of sitting  by the side of the road broken down at neither a place or time of your choosing whilst waiting for a recovery vehicle?

7) If you have any doubt you have misfueld or put petrol in your diesel its well worth carrying out an olfactory test, go on have a sniff! if your diesel tank smells like petrol – even just a wincy bit then it is

hope that helps

Having drained the wrong fuel from thousands of cars I have spent more time on petrol station forecourts than most.

Every wrong fuel removal involves putting a flexitube into a fuel tank and letting a pump do its thing, on a corsa with 5 litres this may take 5 minutes, a rangerover with 100 litres of wrong fuel in it, or an Iveco van may take an hour, there’s not much to do in this time other than monitor the fuel system and chat with the customers, in between daydreaming I find myself playing the “how much game”, thats where I watch cars coming into the petrol station and try and guess how much they will fuel they will buy before they pump, different stations have different clientele, BP M&S for example tends to have a higher spending customer who will often fill the tanks up, it surprises me still how many people fill up with fivers and tenners – which must be a daily fill up.

I cant stand filling up, so when I do its always to the top from empty, but next time your in a petrol station look at the pumps and see what the last sale was, it would give you a fairly good idea of the clientele of the petrol station and the area your in

There’s also a loyalty to specific stations, some people turn up at the same time and place every week for the top up, and often misfuel when they go off the beaten track and try somewhere new. ive done the same car 3 times in two months in the same station that had been misfuelld, always on a friday night after she had done her weekly shop, I didnt have the heart to charge for the 2nd and 3rd drains but it still cost her 2 full tanks of wasted fuel, I havent seen here for a while and fingers crossed she has learnt her lesson

Had a call from a distraught lady yesterday who had put petrol in her diesel BMW x5, she had it recovered to the dealership last week and after 4 days got the “estimate” in – £6500.

It wasent the highest repair quote I have heard for repairing a misfuel but it was still a bit steep – considering the work didnt need done.

A bmw engine is no pansy, capable of operating in temperatures from -30c to +50, running for 250.000 between major rebuilds, and lasting for 20 years pushing a heavy car body at high speed – does not have an in built “self distruct” function when it detects petrol in a diesel engine.

Misfuelling is a common occurrence and happens all the time, it is a myth that petrol will destroy your diesel engine or that common rail components need replaced.

In the case of the Lady in west london she had been told that major work was needed including replacing fuel tank, hoses, high pressure fuel pump, in tank pump, piezo injectors etc, all not needed.

I met her at the dealership (where I have done 4 similair drains on misfuelld BMW’s) and the dealer staff were helpful and let me do the fuel drain in the premises, it took all of 35 minutes and after a flush and filling up with the wrong fuel she drove away in her beloved x5.

Fuel drains are the way forward, the AA and RAC both have a large fuel draining fleet and they  wouldnt be in the business if it opend them up to liabilities further down the line.

The truth is cars can deal with a misfuel, it doesnt kill them or destroy the engines or pumps, its not great for the tank, and can corrode hoses and internal rubbers if left for too long but it doesn’t cause the catastrophes that the dealers would like you to believe.

If you have misfuelled a car and it is in the dealers it not too late to get a fuel drain, and dont get taken in by empty threats of warranty invalidation, you can always quote the Eu Block Exmption Rule which put an end to the dealers shady practices of adding clauses to warrantes on cars to nobble consumers.

thats about enough from me

I have done a few fuel drains on Fiats recently so if you have put the wrong fuel in your Fiat Panda or unleaded In your Doble or diesel in your petrol 500 – we can help.

Fiats are easy cars to perform fuel drains, being front wheel drive they have simple fuel tank set ups and are easy to access.

Fiat has a some great little diesel cars out at the moment, and I like working on them. this particular fiat that I did had been hire from choices vehicle rentals and the client had hired the car from gatwick.

If  you have misfueld your fiat give me, or any other mobile fuel drainer a call and you will be back up and running again in an hour or so.

For instructions on how to do a diy fuel drain, providing you have the know how and a safe place to do it I would suggest going in through the back seat, this is done as follows on most fiat models

1) lift up back seat, this unclips with a hard tug (a proper hard tug – I,e a man tug)

2) unscrew the big steel collar holding the take sender, this is always so much easier if you read the direction arrows and loosen it in the direction indicated, try as you might you cannot take it off by tightening it.

3) disconnect fuel lines and electrical sender

4) lift out in tank fuel pump and put your own hose into the tank to take out the mixed fuel

5) once empty put it all back together again

Only perform a DIY fuel drain if you are technically minded and fully aware of the forces of Darwinism at work when working with highly volatile, flammable and explosive nature of petrol.

For the sake of safety mixed fuel should be treated as PETROL no matter what the quantity involved, petrol is a different animal than diesel and creates an explosive vapour in temperatures above 5c (thats cold)

Hope that helps, call me if your stuck or something with a blue flashing light if it goes totally tits up.