Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Backworth
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble begins once it is pulled through the pump — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully flushed where your car sits around Backworth. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Backworth: the first few minutes
To do:
- Remove your keys, which stops someone switching the electrics on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, and so don't bin it out.
- Call right where you are. Say a NE27 0 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch down B1322.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
The attendants working at any Backworth forecourt — the BP included — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust to clean the gases. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps apart instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in West Allotment last night and has not turned since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, untouched — though it will be the first thing through once your motor runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, attacking any part it reaches till it is removed completely. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny passages. A car left sitting around Backworth with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a separate kind of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the JET, and this problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's inside that tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Crystals and corrosion stay through the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush matters so much, and turning your key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Holystone or the heart of Backworth alike.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and that tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Tyne and Wear the car is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Backworth: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — may appear the same. No one intends it; plenty of designs allow it. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a bottle bought en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Backworth Park Primary School. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Church Road. Or someone new to that flap tops up your car in dim light, parked in the car park by Backworth Social Club.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the spare car of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers know least. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to the same mistake, wherever in Backworth or the rest of Tyne and Wear you happen to be.
Backworth: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Via your filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any might appear, maybe midway across Backworth or coming back from Backworth Golf Club. No starting it again to check: stop when safe, then turn everything off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Exit the A167(M), under 10 miles from Backworth, by the first junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Hopping across Backworth to the car park by St John is one matter; driving towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 10 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once the motor has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage if it is caught soon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Backworth: what it takes
The car stays put, whether that's a road near Backworth Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station around Backworth, and our van comes to it. Before anything else we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if the motor has been run, since those replies determine the work.
Next, draining the tank right there removes the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. A careful flush counts much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since residue will not wash out by itself. Testing your car comes last, after clean diesel goes in and the filter is cleaned or, if needed, replaced. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we arrive, provided the engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that is the final step. At that point we fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space at Seaton Delaval or a driveway in Backworth. Before leaving, our technicians make sure it's running properly with clean diesel in. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Backworth and where it is
Backworth is a village situated on the riverside in Tyne and Wear, with a relatively low elevation of 58 metres. Backworth lies near the cities of Newcastle upon Tyne and the surrounding areas of West Holywell, East Holywell, and Shiremoor. Backworth has a population of around 1073 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Backworth is located approximately 251 miles north of London, in the North East region of England.
AdBlue drains in Backworth and across Tyne and Wear
Throughout the NE postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs around Backworth reach most of Tyne and Wear as well, West Holywell, East Holywell and Shiremoor among them. Near a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than assuming, so ring.
Backworth is a village, and a mobile 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, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Backworth
Not one flat figure would be honest, since each job is different. What moves the price is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind West Backworth Medieval Settlement (English Heritage Scheduled Monument).
What was put in, how much, plus if the engine ran: every Backworth enquiry opens by asking exactly those, ahead of any quote, not after. Given those replies, a range narrows to a single fixed number.
Before a van heads out, you hear our quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still beside the vehicle around Backworth?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with your car is to leave it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether the engine ran is all we need. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Tyne and Wear, Backworth too.