Ashtead: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when the fuel system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Ashtead, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the motor has been run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Ashtead: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Remove your keys, which stops someone switching the electrics on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting KT21 1, or whatever street lies nearest, and the van finds you directly — so call wherever you are.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: the motor stays off.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't weaken it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short way up The Street.
- No draining it yourself, either, at the roadside.
On a forecourt around Ashtead, whether it's the Shell or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. No part in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of that was meant to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is how a car filled in Tyrrells Wood yesterday and never switched on stays the simple case, as long as no one touches the key.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it's flushed out. Pipes holding AdBlue mean harm by morning for a car sitting in Ashtead. Just inside your tank, it stays stable. The water in it causes damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Texaco's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that's the whole issue. No damage is done while it stays put, blended into your diesel — only when the motor runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. It doesn't burn, and so it can't simply be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Leatherhead Common or the centre of Ashtead, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not remain mixed, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the next tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Surrey the car is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Ashtead
Many cars put the AdBlue cap beside the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap, and in dim light the two may look the same. Nobody intends it. Usually it's not the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle driving home and tips it in outside the house.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside St Giles' CofE (Aided) Infant School the top-up is hurried. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive near Rectory Lane. Otherwise, after dark outside The Brewery Inn, your car is topped up by a driver using that flap for the first time.
The least known cars see it most — hire cars, brand-new cars, fleet cars, and the other car of a home with both fuel types. Wherever you are in Ashtead or the remainder of Surrey, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ashtead, and the engine started?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Through your filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is how far it travels.
Perhaps coming back from Ashtead Cricket Club, or midway across Ashtead, your motor might run rough, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M25, under a mile from Ashtead, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
A quick hop across Ashtead to the car park by Ashtead Village Club is one matter; heading towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has stopped, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. If it is spotted soon, permanent damage is very uncommon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Ashtead
A road by St Michaels, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the car has come to rest in Ashtead, our engineers come to it. Three answers shape the job, so before anything else we ask what went in, about what quantity, plus if your motor has run.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after that tank is emptied, right there. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Next, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. After that clean diesel, then a test of your vehicle. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the last step. Then we fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay by the nearest station or a driveway around Ashtead. The check before our technicians leave is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. No workshop is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Ashtead
Ashtead is a locality in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 72 metres, approximately 15.6 miles from London. Ashtead comprises residential areas, including Lower Ashtead, and open spaces like Ashtead Common. Ashtead has a population of around 2377 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Ashtead is close to nearby places such as The Wells.
Ashtead and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Ashtead also cover the locations about it, Lower Ashtead, Ashtead Common and The Wells among them, and most of Surrey beyond, across the KT postcode area. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Wherever your car stands — your drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it there, with no need to take it to us; which suits Ashtead, a small village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Ashtead?
Since the callouts vary, a single figure wouldn't be fair. What shifts the cost is, first, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind St. Michaels Church Hall.
With that reason, every call from Ashtead begins by asking the identical trio — what was put in, how much, whether the engine ran — ahead of a quote. Their replies narrow the range down to one number.
Our price is given on the call, before anyone sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Ashtead: still beside your car?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether the engine ran are everything we need. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest across Surrey, Ashtead too.