AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Anchorage Park? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and your ignition too. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. The trouble begins once it's sucked through your lines — it won't ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Anchorage Park. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Anchorage Park: the first few minutes
To do:
- Take the keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're anywhere near moving traffic.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Give us a postcode starting PO3 5, or whatever street is closest, and the van finds you straight — so ring from wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- Moving the vehicle even a few yards is no reason to start the motor.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel won't thin it.
- Keep it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way down Sywell Crescent.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it on your own.
The staff working at any Anchorage Park forecourt — the Shell included — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. At home, your car stays exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. Stored in a dedicated tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. A car filled on a driveway in Vicarage Row overnight and not started since counts as the simple case. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but when the motor runs, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, attacking any part it touches until it is cleared from the system. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow passages. By daybreak, a car sitting in Anchorage Park with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it's only in your tank, it doesn't. Then there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is commonly worse than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Esso. No damage is done as long as it sits unused, mixed into the diesel — only once the engine runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Highbury or the middle of Anchorage Park.
As with petrol, there is good news. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits just in that tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, wherever the car has come to rest in Hampshire.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Anchorage Park?
It's not on purpose. Many cars keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. Usually it's not the forecourt: someone buys a bottle driving home and pours it in outside the house.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Gatcombe Park Primary School the top-up is rushed. Close to Latimer Court, someone pours a bottle in on that drive in the evening. Or someone new to that flap refills your car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside Compass Rose.
It takes place most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever around Hampshire, Anchorage Park included, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Anchorage Park, and the engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and pipework.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: any might show up, maybe midway across Anchorage Park or coming back from Langstone Harbour Sports Ground. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep it off instead of restarting it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Exit the M27, under a mile from Anchorage Park, by the next junction and park safely, rather than driving on.
Mileage matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so heading for Portsmouth, under 3 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Anchorage Park to the car park by Anchorage Lodge. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where your car has come to a stop, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Lasting damage is very unusual when it's spotted soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Anchorage Park?
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Anchorage Park: a side street near WW1 Remembrance Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers shape the job, so first our engineers ask which fluid was put in, roughly the amount, and if the motor has turned over.
Then that tank is drained where the car waits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since residue won't wash out by itself. Fresh diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking bay at Hilsea or a drive around Anchorage Park, that is where our technicians fire it up and you head off. Our engineers check it runs smoothly on new diesel before we go. Our technicians do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Anchorage Park
Anchorage Park is a coastal suburban area in Hampshire, situated near the city of Portsmouth and close to neighbouring areas such as Hilsea and Copnor. Anchorage Park has a relatively low elevation of around 3 metres, reflecting its proximity to the sea. Anchorage Park is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock, which is typical of many suburban areas in southern England.
Anchorage Park and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Our teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Anchorage Park also cover the places about it, Hilsea, Copnor and St Francis Court among them, and most of Hampshire beyond, across the PO postcode area. Ring and ask instead of guessing when you're close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Anchorage Park is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Anchorage Park: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be honest, because each job differs. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open drive is simpler for a technician to reach safely than a tight spot behind Hilsea Lines and Ramparts.
That is why each call from Anchorage Park starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. With those replies, the range shrinks to a single fixed number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told our price on the phone. Then payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. While the van is on the way, check your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Still alongside your car in Anchorage Park?
Not touching the car is, right now, the best move you can do. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran are all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest across Hampshire, Anchorage Park included.