AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Bankside? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only comes when the pump starts drawing it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully rinsed where the vehicle stands around Bankside. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Bankside: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting SE1 9, or whatever street is nearest, and the van reaches you directly — so ring wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift your car.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, and so it is wasted.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short way up Hopton Street.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the kerbside.
The staff on duty at any Bankside filling station — the Texaco among them — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it precisely where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
It doesn't combine. Once it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like fuel. It drops, because it's heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup takes its supply from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in The Borough last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filters and narrow channels; meanwhile, because it eats at certain metals, every part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays in there. Overnight, a car parked in Bankside with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it is only in that tank, it doesn't. And there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that rely on it most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Shell, and this problem is diluted fuel. Mixed through your diesel and sitting unused, it's no threat for now; running your engine does the harm.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits again — and the following tankful won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Bankside or out in Temple, costs more than almost any other mistake.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever in Greater London your car has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Bankside: how it ends up there
Many motors put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, now and then under a single flap, and after dark the two can appear identical. Nobody intends it. A bottle picked up when heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. The top-up is rushed outside The Cathedral School of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, after your dash flashed with a warning as the children were dropped in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Holland Street. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Swan at The Globe, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the spare car of a family with both fuels — the vehicles drivers know the least. Same slip, same first response — leave it off — wherever you happen to be in Bankside or the remainder of Greater London.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bankside?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. With any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, after passing through the filter and lines.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Tate Modern Community Garden, say, or midway across Bankside. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Exit the M1, under 10 miles from Bankside, at the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving for London, under a mile away, gives a far larger job than crossing Bankside to the car park by Soham’s Spot. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the motor has been started. Noticed soon, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Bankside
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that's a road near Bankside Gallery, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt around Bankside, and our van travels to it. What was put in, about the quantity, plus if the motor has turned over: our technicians check before all else, because those shape the job.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. A full flush counts much more after AdBlue than with petrol, because what remains will not wash out on its own. A test of the vehicle follows at the end, after clean diesel is added and the filter gets flushed or, where needed, replaced. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Bleeding the system with fresh diesel comes last. Then we start it and you head off, whether from a parking space by London Blackfriars or a drive around Bankside. It is checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs smoothly before our engineers head off. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Bankside, briefly
Bankside is a suburban area in the London Borough of Southwark, situated on the south bank of the River Thames. Bankside sits at a low elevation of around 10 metres, with the river forming its northern boundary. Bankside is close to nearby places such as Blackfriars, North Southwark, and Southwark, and is dominated by flat housing. Bankside is a short distance from central London, at approximately 1.2 miles from the city centre.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Bankside included
AdBlue jobs in Bankside go to teams that serve the towns around it — Blackfriars, North Southwark plus Southwark — and most of Greater London further out, across SE postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats assuming, so ring.
Anywhere the vehicle sits — a drive at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — we empty it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; which suits Bankside, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Bankside
Each job is different, so not one fixed price would be fair. What shifts the price is, firstly, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Tate Modern.
That's why each call from Bankside starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. With those replies, the range narrows to a single firm figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear our price by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
In Bankside and still beside the car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether the engine ran is everything we ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Greater London, Bankside too.