Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Alston
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system draws it in. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Alston. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Alston: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting CA9 3, or whatever street is nearest, and the van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you stand.
Don't do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your car: the motor remains off.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's wasted.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch up Station Road.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the verge.
The staff on duty at any Alston filling station — the Quality Fuels included — will normally lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. At home, the vehicle remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. From a separate reservoir it is fed directly to the exhaust, treating what the motor emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It sinks, because it is denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits beneath the diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Leadgate last night and never started remains the simple case, provided nobody touches the key.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and narrow channels; and, because it attacks some metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it remains inside. A vehicle left standing in Alston with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water content harms them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is commonly worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Texaco's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that's the whole problem. No damage comes while it stays put, mixed into your diesel — only once the motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits again — and the following tankful will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of Alston or out in Ayle, does more harm than almost any other error.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Wherever in Cumbria the vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue still in the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Alston: how it ends up there
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. A container bought while driving home and tipped in at home, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. Hurrying, outside Alston Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Townfoot. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside Cumberland Inn, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar vehicles see it most — rentals, new ones, company ones, and the spare motor of a home with one of each fuel types. Leave it off: that's the first response to the same slip, wherever around Alston or the remainder of Cumbria you are.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Alston?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It has been pulled through your filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any may appear, maybe part way across Alston or coming back from Grisedale Community Garden. When safe, stop then switch everything off — with no restarting to test. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M6, under 25 miles from Alston, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
A quick hop across Alston to the car park by Jacob Walton Memorial is one matter; driving for Carlisle, under 25 miles away, is another, since each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been started, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage if it's noticed soon.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Alston
The vehicle remains put, whether that's a street near The Chat Room, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station in Alston, and the van travels to it. Three replies shape the work, so first our technicians ask which fluid got in, about what quantity, and if your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after the tank is drained, on the spot. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is cleaned right through because residue won't flush out by itself. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. Then fresh diesel, then a test of the car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers get there, if the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. Whether it is a parking space outside Haltwhistle or a drive in Alston, that is where we fire it up and you head off. It's checked on fresh diesel to make sure it runs smoothly before our engineers head off. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to go to a workshop. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Alston and where it is
Alston is a town situated in the North Pennines, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and sits on the River South Tyne at an elevation of 280 metres. Alston is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is surrounded by nearby places such as Raise, Bayles, and Blagill. Alston has a population of approximately 1422 residents and is located 20.3 miles from Carlisle, the nearest city. Alston is also relatively distant from London, at 247.6 miles away.
Alston and Cumbria: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs around Alston go to vans that cover the places around it — Raise, Bayles plus Blagill — and much of Cumbria further out, throughout CA postcodes. Phone and check instead of guessing when you are by a county line, or somewhere awkward to explain.
No moving is needed. In Alston, a riverside town, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is emptied on the spot, be it on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Alston?
No flat price could be honest, because each job is different. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, since an open driveway is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight spot behind Alston Town Hall.
Ahead of any quote, not afterwards, each call from Alston opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus if the engine ran. When they are known, a range turns into a single fixed figure.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before a van sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Next to your car around Alston, still?
Not touching the car is, right now, the best thing you can do. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Alston or wherever within Cumbria.