Wrong fuel on the A690 Durham Road
Wrong fuel on the A690 Durham Road? Do not restart the engine. If you are in a live lane, get clear and call 999 first. Otherwise call 01293 248666 — we drain on site. Call-out £89 to £199, drain £199 to £1,999.
No premises, no recovery truck
The alternative to what we do is a recovery truck, a garage queue and a courtesy car you did not want. Wrong Fuel Sunderland sends a technician to SR1 to SR6, DH4 and DH5 instead, and the job is normally finished where you are standing. Call 01293 248666. There is no Sunderland branch to drive to, which is rather the point.
| Road | A690 Durham Road |
|---|---|
| Section we cover | Sunderland to Houghton-le-Spring and Durham |
| Junctions and landmarks | Ashbrooke, Silksworth, Doxford Park, Herrington, Houghton-le-Spring, Rainton and Durham |
| Fuel stops on this stretch | Doxford Park and Houghton-le-Spring |
| Cost | Call-out £89 to £199, drain £199 to £1,999, quoted in full before we travel |
| Hours | 24 hours, every day |
Why wrong fuel happens on the A690 Durham Road
Durham Road is the main route inland and is lined with forecourts serving dense residential areas. The pattern here is local and skews towards the first tank after a car change.
The nozzle-geometry point applies here as everywhere: an unleaded nozzle drops straight into a diesel filler neck, while a diesel nozzle is usually too wide for a petrol one. On a road like this, where a large share of drivers are part-way through a long leg and filling somewhere they have never filled before, that asymmetry shows up as a steady run of petrol-in-diesel jobs.
Roadside safety, in order
- Do not restart the engine On a live carriageway this matters more, not less. A restarted engine turns a drain into a possible pump and injector job.
- Hazards on, get out on the nearside If you are on a hard shoulder or a verge, leave by the passenger side and stand behind the barrier, up the bank, away from the traffic.
- Call 999 or National Highways on 0300 123 5000 first if you are in a live lane If the vehicle cannot be moved off a running lane, that call comes before ours. Then call us.
- Call 01293 248666 Tell us the junction or the nearest marker post, the vehicle, and which fuel went in. You get a price before anyone travels.
- We drain and flush on site Where it is safe to work, the job is done where the vehicle stands. Where it is not, we say so rather than turning up and charging you to find out.
If it is not safe to work where you are
There are stretches of the A690 Durham Road where draining at the roadside is not a sensible thing to do — a live lane, a blind bend, no verge. We will tell you that on the phone rather than after arriving, and recovery to somewhere workable is the right answer in those cases. Being told honestly costs you nothing; being told on arrival costs you a call-out.
Litres matter less than you think
The quantity of wrong fuel is rarely what sets the price. Distance travelled through the system does. Fuel that never left the tank comes out with a pump and a hose. Fuel that reached the high-pressure pump may have begun wearing it, and fuel that reached the injectors may have carried that wear with it.
The A19 carries very heavy freight. A vehicle stopped on it, or in the approach to the Tyne Tunnel, needs to be got clear before anything else is considered.
Services along this route
Areas on or near this road
Four point eight, and why it is not five
2,190 Trustpilot reviews average 4.8. Happy customers write about patience: a technician who explained each step instead of hurrying, at an hour when nobody wanted to be standing on a forecourt.
Most of the missing tenth is money. That is understandable, so the numbers sit in plain sight — call-out £89 to £199, drain £199 to £1,999 — and every figure is agreed by phone first, never revealed on arrival.
Questions we get asked
Is there an out-of-hours surcharge?
The call-out is the call-out. Whatever the total is, you hear it on the phone before anyone travels.
Can I just top it up with the right fuel?
No. Dilution does not fix contamination, and driving to a filling station to try it is the mile that turns a drain into a repair.
How long will I be waiting?
Arrival depends where you are across SR1 to SR6, DH4 and DH5 and what is already running. You get a realistic window on the call rather than an optimistic one.
Do you cover all of SR1 to SR6, DH4 and DH5?
Yes, from one rota — so being at one edge of the area rather than the other changes the arrival window, not the price.
What happens to the old fuel?
It leaves with us as controlled waste under a waste transfer note. It is not tipped, and it is not resold to you.
How much does it cost in A690 Durham Road?
Call-out £89 to £199, drain £199 to £1,999. The full price for your vehicle is confirmed on the phone before a technician sets off, so there is no surprise when we arrive.
Who you are dealing with
Wrong Fuel Sunderland is a service by Forecourt Assistance. Forecourt Assistance is a trading name of Fuel Fixer Ltd, company no 08520551, a company of Fuel Fixer International. Registered at Fairway House, Portland Road, East Grinstead, RH19 4ET. Fuel Fixer International is owned by Stockbridge Capital Holdings.
Across the network
Wrong Fuel Sunderland is one of the sites run by Forecourt Assistance, a trading name of Fuel Fixer Ltd, part of Fuel Fixer International, owned by Stockbridge Capital Holdings. Every site below belongs to the same company.
- Forecourt Assistance — the operator: network directory and author page
- AdBlue in Fuel — AdBlue contamination drains only
- Misfuel Doctor — misfuel help, organised by fuel mix-up
- Wrong Fuel — the evidence base; home of every statistic
- Fuel Fixer Scotland — wrong fuel across Scotland, plus Ireland
- Fuel Fixer — the group operating site
- Misfuel Servicing — wrong fuel and misfuelling help, call-only
Background reading: Environment Agency.
Last updated · Reviewed by Rambo S, Wrong Fuel Expert