Andover Down: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off then keep your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm happens until the motor sucks it through. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Andover Down. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Andover Down, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
To do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, pull the keys out.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly how much quantity? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we will see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting SP11 6, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch up The Middleway.
- Do not try to drain it yourself by the roadside.
Moving the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Andover Down forecourt you're on, the BP or any other. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays just where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't deal with urea.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Smannell last night and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue sits at the base of your tank, untouched — but it would be first through if the motor starts, before any diesel at all.
After it is pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps running on the components it gets to for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning around Andover Down makes things worse. Inside your tank alone, time does nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a separate kind of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that's the whole issue. Blended into the diesel and left still, it is no threat for now; running the motor is the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Andover Down or out in Forton, costs more than nearly any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever in Hampshire your car has stopped, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest bit of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Andover Down
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind a single flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a bottle grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Pilgrims' Cross CofE Aided Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up your car. A driver tips the container in at home, right off London Road, as the day ends. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap refills your car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside Queen Charlotte Inn.
It crops up most in a rental, a new car, a fleet vehicle, or the spare motor of a family with both fuel types — the cars people use least. Wherever across Hampshire, Andover Down as well, the slip does not change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Andover Down?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, after passing via your filter and pipework.
Maybe coming back from Picket Twenty Sports Ground, or part way across Andover Down, the engine may run rough, smoke, drop pace, flash your dash or stall. When safe, pull over then switch it off — with no restarting to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
Andover Down sits under 10 miles from the M3; if you were on it, exit at the first junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading towards Winchester, under 15 miles away, makes a much bigger job than hopping across Andover Down to the car park by Roman Building. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Spotted quickly, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Andover Down?
Wherever it has come to rest around Andover Down — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by Picket Piece Village Hall — our van travels to the vehicle. The job rests on three answers, which we ask for first — which fluid was put in, the amount, and if your motor has turned over.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. Residue from AdBlue won't flush away unaided, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than for petrol. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. You set off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive in Andover Down or in a bay outside Andover. The test before we go is that it runs correctly on new diesel. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Andover Down itself
Andover Down is a village in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of 104 metres, approximately 11.8 miles from Winchester. Andover Down has a population of around 969 residents, with a predominance of semi-detached housing. Andover Down is located near other local places such as Picket Piece, East Anton, and Andover, and is about 60 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Andover Down and Hampshire
Over the SP postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Andover Down reach most of Hampshire too, Picket Piece, East Anton and Andover included. Guessing won't help by a county line or anywhere tricky to describe; phone and check.
A mobile service suits Andover Down, a rural village: there's no need to take the vehicle to us, because our engineers empty it there, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
Andover Down: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since each callouts vary, a single price would not be fair. What moves the cost is, firstly, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind National Bird Watch.
Which fluid went in, how much, plus if it ran: each Andover Down enquiry opens with exactly that, before any figure, not afterwards. Those answers shrink a range down to a single number.
The quote is given on the call, before a van leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
In Andover Down and still beside your car?
Not touching the car is, right now, the most useful thing open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Andover Down or wherever within Hampshire.