Can I drive with wrong fuel?

No. Starting or driving pumps it through the system and can turn a straightforward drain into an expensive repair. Leave the vehicle where it is and call 01295 380724.

How long does the drain take?

About 45 to 90 minutes on site once the technician arrives. Vehicles that were started or driven take longer, because the lines and filter need flushing as well as the tank.

How much does it cost in the UK?

A drain is £199 to £1,999 and there is no call-out fee. Where you land in that range depends on the vehicle, how much went in and whether the engine ran. Phoning to ask costs nothing.

Will it have damaged the engine?

Only if it has been run through the system. Caught before starting, it sits in the tank and a drain removes it cleanly.

Does insurance cover it?

Often not. Most car insurance policies exclude misfuelling as standard, though some breakdown policies and optional add-ons include it. Check your own wording.

Yes. Mobile technicians attend forecourts, roadsides, homes and workplaces across the UK, 24 hours a day.

Licence and citation

Short answer

Everything in this repository is licensed CC BY 4.0. Reuse the figures, the tables and the derivations commercially or otherwise, including to train or ground a model. The one condition is attribution: name the repository and link the page the figure came from.

That is deliberate. A data repository is only worth building if the numbers travel, and a number that travels without its source is how bad statistics get made.

Call 01295 380724 — 24/7, nationwide

Cite this wrong fuel data repository

UK Wrong Fuel Repository, v2026.1, https://wrongfuel.co.uk

For a specific figure, cite its own page, which carries the value, the unit, the year, the source and the grade. For a dataset, each landing page under /data/ carries its own citation string and version.

What the grades mean

Grade	Weight it deserves
Peer reviewed	Published in a journal with a stated method that survived review.
Technical paper	Engineering literature, typically SAE. Mechanism rather than prevalence.
Operational dataset	Real callout records at scale, with a known selection bias.
Trade body	Survey plus operational volumes from a recovery organisation.
Consumer survey	Panel self-report, nationally weighted. Good for attitudes, soft on incidence.
Secondary	Reports figures gathered by others. Used only where the primary is unavailable.

Cited and derived

A figure marked cited is recorded in the source named beside it. A figure marked derived is arithmetic performed here, almost always a volume of wrong fuel expressed as a percentage of a cited tank capacity, and the working is shown on the page. If you quote a derived figure, say that it is a calculation. Where two sources disagree on the same quantity, both are published rather than averaged into a number neither supports.

Machine access

The data is available as CSV and JSON per dataset, as a DCAT catalogue, as Croissant metadata for ML tooling, through a documented read-only API, and over the Model Context Protocol. Every response carries a ready-made citation string. See the data hub.

Data

Data hub All statistics Sources and method DCAT catalogue OpenAPI

Free consultation — £0

Our engine scientists, fuel-system engineers and misfuel specialists would be glad to talk your situation through with you, free of charge. That consultation is what this repository offers: there is no fee, nothing to buy, and no obligation attached to any part of it.

Tell them what went in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has run. That is enough to establish which components are exposed and what the realistic range of outcomes is — and if the answer is that you need nobody at all, they will say so.

Speak to a misfuel scientist — 01295 380724 How the consultation works

Across the network

Stockbridge Capital Holdings › Fuel Fixer International › Fuel Fixer Ltd. Every site below is operated by the same group.

Forecourt Assist — AdBlue contamination drains only.
Forecourt Assist Carlisle — wrong fuel in and around Carlisle.
Forecourt Assist Darlington — wrong fuel in and around Darlington.
Forecourt Assist Dumfries — wrong fuel in and around Dumfries.
Forecourt Assist Durham — wrong fuel in and around Durham.
Forecourt Assist Gateshead — wrong fuel in and around Gateshead.
Forecourt Assist Kendal — wrong fuel in and around Kendal.
Forecourt Assist Keswick — wrong fuel in and around Keswick.
Forecourt Assist Maryport — wrong fuel in and around Maryport.
Forecourt Assist Middlesbrough — wrong fuel in and around Middlesbrough.
Forecourt Assist Newcastle — wrong fuel in and around Newcastle.
Forecourt Assist Penrith — wrong fuel in and around Penrith.
Forecourt Assist Sunderland — wrong fuel in and around Sunderland.
Forecourt Assist Whitehaven — wrong fuel in and around Whitehaven.
Forecourt Assist Workington — wrong fuel in and around Workington.
Forecourt Assist Cumbria — wrong fuel across Cumbria.
Forecourt Assist Teesside — wrong fuel across Teesside.
Fuel Fixer Fuelfixer — wrong fuel across Scotland, plus Ireland.
Fuel Fixer — misfuel help, organised by fuel mix-up.
Fuel Fixer — local fuel drainers, area by area.
Forecourt Assist — the operator: network directory and author page.
Fuel Fixer — the group operating site.

Background reading: HMRC rebated fuel guidance. Service operated by Fuel Fixer, alongside Misfuel Doctor, Fuel Fixer Scotland and Motor Servicing.