AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Battle Field? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the engine off — and the ignition as well. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage just comes once the pump begins pulling it. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Battle Field. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Battle Field, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do these:
- Pull your keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, so don't throw it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting NE1 2, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Shifting the car even a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- Adding more diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Red Barns.
- Emptying the tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Get the attendants to help you move the vehicle away from the island if you are on a forecourt in Battle Field, whether it is the Gulf or elsewhere. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than mixing — quite unlike fuel. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that's just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a drive in St Lawrence overnight and left unstarted counts as the simple one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once the motor turns, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and narrow passages; and, because it attacks certain metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it remains inside. Pipes holding AdBlue spell damage by morning for a car sitting in Battle Field. Just in your tank, it stays stable. And there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that rely on it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the BP, and the problem is thinned fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it's inside that tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Crystals and corrosion stay after the following fill, and AdBlue separates back out of your diesel, and so watering it can't help. Hence the flush counts so much, and trying the engine "to see" costs more here than almost any other slip — in East Gateshead or the centre of Battle Field alike.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Anywhere around Tyne and Wear your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue still in the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Battle Field: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — may look the same. No one means it; many layouts allow it. It mostly occurs at home, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Christ Church CofE Primary School the top-up is rushed. A driver pours the bottle in at home, just off Stepney Bank, as the day ends. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park by The Tanners Arms.
It crops up most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a company vehicle, or the other vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people use the least. Anywhere around Tyne and Wear, Battle Field as well, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first response: leave it switched off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Battle Field?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. It has been drawn through the filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or stalling: each may show up, maybe midway across Battle Field or coming back from Shieldfield Green. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Battle Field lies under a mile from the A167(M); if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, and so heading for Newcastle upon Tyne, under a mile away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Battle Field to the car park by Chilli Studios. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the flushing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Caught quickly, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Battle Field
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Battle Field: a side street near St. Dominic's Priory Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Which fluid got in, about the quantity, and whether your motor has been run: our engineers ask first, since those shape the work.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. The system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. After that, your filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a check of your car. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Finally, the fuel system is primed with fresh diesel. You head off as soon as our technicians have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway in Battle Field or in a bay outside Manors. Our engineers make sure it runs smoothly on fresh diesel before leaving. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Battle Field itself
Battle Field is a suburban area located on the riverside in Tyne and Wear, with a relatively low elevation of 36 metres. Battle Field sits close to the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, being only 0.6 miles away, and is near other areas such as Shieldfield and Byker. Battle Field is predominantly composed of flat housing, which is typical of many urban areas in the North East of England. Battle Field is situated approximately 247 miles north of London, making it a significant residential area in the region.
AdBlue drains across Tyne and Wear, Battle Field included
Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne and Byker are among the places around Battle Field that the same teams serve, along with most of Tyne and Wear further out, over the NE postcode area. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
A van that comes to you fits Battle Field, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the car to us, since our technicians empty it there, in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Battle Field?
Because the jobs vary, a single figure would not be honest. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open driveway is easier for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Jára Cimrman.
Which fluid went in, how much, and if it ran: every Battle Field enquiry opens with exactly those, ahead of any figure, not afterwards. Their answers shrink the range down to a single figure.
Our price is quoted on the call, before a van leaves; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
In Battle Field and still next to your car?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Battle Field or anywhere within Tyne and Wear.