AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Aldbourne? Don't Start It
Motor off, ignition off: that's how you begin if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The trouble starts once it's pulled through your lines — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Aldbourne. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Aldbourne, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
To do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take the keys out.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and roughly how much, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a SN8 2 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- Moving your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch up B4192.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
On a forecourt in Aldbourne, whether it is the Shell or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car away from the pump. On that drive, your car stays exactly where it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, treating what the engine emits. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. Simplest of all: one that got AdBlue in Upper Upham last night and has not been started since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, undrawn — though it will be first through once your engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
Once it is drawn in, the damage takes two forms. It attacks some metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it reaches until it's removed completely. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Pipes holding AdBlue spell harm overnight for a car parked in Aldbourne. Just in your tank, it stays the same. Then there's the water: it brings no protection to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Smiths of Axford and you have an issue of thin fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in your tank, it causes none.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. It can't simply be run through, since it does not burn. Whether the car sits in Whittonditch or the centre of Aldbourne, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake, and the flush matters more. Why: it will not stay blended, so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following fill.
As with petrol, there's good news. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Wiltshire your car is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Aldbourne?
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap — may appear the same. No one intends it; plenty of designs allow it. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside St Michael's CofE Aided Primary. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Marlborough Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Crown, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up most in a rental, a new car, a fleet car, or the other vehicle in a home with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers know the least. Keep it off: that's the first step to an identical mistake, anywhere in Aldbourne or the rest of Wiltshire you happen to be.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Aldbourne, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Given any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed through the fuel filter and lines.
Perhaps returning from The Green, or part way across Aldbourne, your engine may go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or cut out. No restarting to test: pull over when safe, then turn everything off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the M4, under 3 miles from Aldbourne, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Aldbourne to the car park by Community Junction is a very different job from a run towards Oxford, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the car has stopped. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it is caught quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Aldbourne?
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Aldbourne: a side street close to Aldbourne Heritage Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. What went in, about the quantity, and if the engine has been run: our technicians ask first, since those decide the job.
Right there, your tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea come out at once. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because residue won't flush out unaided. A test of the vehicle follows at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the filter is flushed or, if needed, swapped. Not run? Then expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no issue, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Starting the car comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, at Hungerford or on a drive in Aldbourne. Before we go, we make sure it's running smoothly with clean diesel in. No workshop is needed at any point, with the whole job done on the spot. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Aldbourne itself
Aldbourne is a village in Wiltshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 130 metres. Aldbourne lies near the villages of Preston and Baydon, and is close to Marridge Hill. Aldbourne has a population of approximately 1413 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Aldbourne is located 64.3 miles from London and 24.5 miles from Oxford.
Aldbourne and Wiltshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the SN postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Aldbourne reach much of Wiltshire as well, Preston, Marridge Hill and Baydon included. Assuming won't help by a border or anywhere tricky to describe; ring and check.
Aldbourne is a village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Aldbourne: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job is different, and so no single price is honest. What shifts the price is, firstly, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind St Michael.
Before any quote, not after, each call from Aldbourne opens with the same three checks: the liquid, the quantity, and if it ran. When they are answered, a range becomes one fixed figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the price by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still beside the car around Aldbourne?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Aldbourne or anywhere within Wiltshire.