Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bearsted
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm starts once it's pulled through your lines — it won't ignite, and it will not blend with diesel. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully purged where the vehicle stands in Bearsted. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do straight away, Bearsted: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Call right where you are. Say a ME14 4 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Moving the vehicle just a short way is no reason to start your motor.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, so it's pointless.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way up Yeoman Lane.
- By the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
The attendants working at any Bearsted filling station — the Shell included — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it stands.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. From a separate tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, treating what the motor lets out. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue settles: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A car filled on a drive in Weavering Street overnight and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once your motor runs, that is what goes first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
It does two kinds of damage from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and tiny passages; and, since it attacks some metals, each part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it stays inside. A vehicle left sitting around Bearsted with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the another forecourt nearby, and this issue is thinned fuel. Mixed through your diesel and sitting still, it's no threat for now; using the engine is the damage.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable liquid. It cannot simply be run through, because it does not burn. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Green Hill or the middle of Bearsted.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Kent the car is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Bearsted
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles waits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Thurnham Church of England Infant School. Close to Ashford Road, a driver tips a container in at home after work. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Kentish Yeoman, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
Hired cars, new cars, fleet vehicles, or the second vehicle in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles get it most. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to the same slip, wherever in Bearsted or the rest of Kent you happen to be.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Bearsted?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and any running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Bearsted Woodland Trust, say, or midway across Bearsted. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
If you were on the M20, under 3 miles from Bearsted, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
A quick hop across Bearsted to the car park by St Peter is one thing; heading for Southend-on-Sea, under 25 miles away, is something else, since every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once the motor has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. When it is spotted early, lasting damage is very unusual.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Bearsted
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Bearsted: a side street near King George V Memorial Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and if the engine has run, because those answers determine this work.
Then that tank is drained where your car sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is flushed right through because residue will not flush out unaided. A test of the vehicle follows last, after clean diesel is added and your filter is flushed or, where needed, swapped. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, provided your motor has not run. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the last step. You head off as soon as our engineers have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Bearsted or in a bay at the nearest station. We check it runs properly on clean diesel before we go. As the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Bearsted, briefly
Bearsted is a village situated on the River Medway in Kent, with a mix of rural and suburban characteristics. Bearsted has a relatively low elevation of 57 metres and is located near the villages of Roseacre and Ware Street. Bearsted is also close to the town of Maidstone, although the nearest city is Southend-on-Sea, which is approximately 19.8 miles away. Bearsted has a population of around 2568 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Bearsted and Kent
Roseacre, Ware Street and Willington are among the places around Bearsted that the same teams serve, along with most of Kent further out, throughout the ME postcode area. Guessing doesn't help close to a border or somewhere tricky to describe; phone and check.
Bearsted is a village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Bearsted
Because each callouts differ, a single figure would not be fair. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Holy Cross Church.
For that in mind, every enquiry from Bearsted begins by asking the same trio — what got in, how much, if the engine ran — ahead of any quote. Given them, the range shrinks to one firm figure.
You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Beside the vehicle in Bearsted, still?
Then, touch nothing — that's the best move available. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Bearsted or wherever in Kent.