AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Beacon? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep your engine off then keep your ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it is pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't blend with diesel. In Beacon, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Beacon
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, and that prevents someone switching the electrics on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly what quantity? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers can see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting EX14 4, or the name of the nearest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the instant your ignition goes on, and so keep the car off.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Dumpdon Lane.
- Draining the tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
On a forecourt in Beacon, whether it's the Regent or another one, ask the staff to help you push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It drops, because it's denser than diesel, and pools low where the pickup takes its fuel from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Rawridge last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
After it is pulled in, the harm takes two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny channels; and, because it eats at certain metals, every part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays in there. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting around Beacon with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it's just in the tank, it doesn't. And there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol at the BP. No damage is done as long as it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only once your motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits again — and the next fill won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Beacon or out in Upottery, costs more than almost any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Anywhere around Devon the vehicle has come to rest, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Beacon: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside Upottery Primary School, because your dash lit up with a warning while the children were dropped off. Near Greenway Lane, a driver pours a container in on the drive in the evening. Else, after dark by the pub in the village, your car is refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a new car, a fleet motor, or the other vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever you're in Beacon or the remainder of Devon, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Beacon, and the engine started?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. The fuel filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running time carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Maybe returning from Dumpdon Plantation, or part way across Beacon, your motor may run lumpy, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or cut out. No starting it again to check: pull over when it is safe, then switch everything off. Every start pulls more of it through.
Beacon lies under 10 miles from the M5; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and stop safely instead of carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That's why a hop across Beacon to park beside Luppitt Village Hall and a drive of under 25 miles for Exeter are such distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the motor has been started. Permanent damage is very uncommon if it's caught soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Beacon?
The vehicle remains put, whether that is a street beside St Mary, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt in Beacon, and the van travels to it. Before anything else we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if the engine has run, because those replies decide the work.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since residue will not clear out by itself. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the system with fresh diesel comes last. At that point our technicians start it and you drive off, whether from a parking space by Honiton or a driveway in Beacon. Our technicians make sure it runs properly on new diesel before we go. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Beacon and where it is
Beacon is a small hamlet in inland Devon, situated at an elevation of 209 metres, approximately 17.9 miles from Exeter. Beacon lies near the villages of Wick, Luppitt, and Monkton, in a rural area of the South West region. Beacon has a population of around 544 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Beacon and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around Beacon also cover the spots about it, Wick, Luppitt and Monkton among them, and most of Devon beyond, across the EX postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Beacon is a rural hamlet, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Beacon
Not one flat figure would be honest, because every job differs. What shifts the price is, firstly, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind St Mary the Virgin.
Before any quote, never afterwards, every enquiry from Beacon opens with three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. Those replies shrink a range right down to one figure.
Before a van sets off, you hear the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Beacon and still beside the vehicle?
Then, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Beacon or wherever in Devon, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.