Ansford: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and your ignition too. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only starts once your pump starts drawing it. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Ansford. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps straight away, Ansford: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting BA7 7, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Shifting the car even a few yards is no reason to start the engine.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, so it's pointless.
- Even a short way down Mullins Way is too far to drive it.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
On a forecourt around Ansford, whether it's the Harvest Energy or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. At home, the car remains just as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it goes directly to the exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. Not one side fits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits beneath the diesel, which is how a car filled in Hadspen yesterday and never started remains the straightforward case, provided nobody turns the key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a car parked around Ansford with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; where it is just in your tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a separate form of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger fault?
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. Mixed into the diesel and left unused, it's harmless for now; running your engine is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Because it does not burn, running it through is not an option. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether your car is in Cockhill or the middle of Ansford.
As with petrol, there's good news. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Somerset the car is standing.
Ansford: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles rests right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's never the filling station: a driver buys a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Castle Cary Community Primary School the top-up is rushed. A driver pours the container in outside their house, just off Churchfield Drive, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light outside The Bay Tree, your car gets topped up by someone using that flap for the first time.
Rented motors, brand-new vehicles, company cars, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Wherever you are around Ansford or the remainder of Somerset, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Ansford?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — on to the injection pump and every injector: that's where it has gone.
Maybe returning from Fairfield, or part way across Ansford, the motor may go rough, smoke, drop pace, flash the dash or stall. Once safe, stop and switch it off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M5, under 25 miles from Ansford, by the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Ansford to the car park by St Andrew is one thing; driving for Wells, under 10 miles away, is another, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance matters. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has stopped, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage if it's spotted soon.
Ansford: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped in Ansford — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street beside Caryford Community Hall — our van comes to the car. The job rests on three replies, which our engineers ask for first — what got in, the quantity, and if your engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one when the tank is drained, right there. Your system is cleaned thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes last. Then our engineers start it and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Castle Cary or a driveway around Ansford. Before leaving, our engineers check it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. As the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Ansford, briefly
Ansford is a suburban area in Somerset, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 92 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Ansford lies near the towns of Castle Cary and Wells, and is surrounded by smaller villages such as South Cary and Clanville. Ansford is located in the South West region of England, approximately 107 miles from London. Ansford has a population of around 2880 residents.
Ansford and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the BA postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs around Ansford serve most of Somerset too, Castle Cary, South Cary and Clanville included. Phone and ask instead of guessing when you're by a border, or anywhere tricky to explain.
Ansford 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, we drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
Ansford: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Because the jobs vary, a flat figure would not be honest. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the car, because an open driveway is easier for our van to reach safely than a tight spot behind The Roundhouse.
Before any quote, not after, each call from Ansford begins with the same three checks: the liquid, the amount, plus whether it ran. Those answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Before anyone heads out, you hear our quote by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Ansford and still beside the vehicle?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Ansford or wherever in Somerset.