AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Blandford St Mary? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does your engine. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it won't burn and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once your pump begins drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Blandford St Mary, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before the engine has run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do straight away, Blandford St Mary: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the product and the quantity, so don't throw it away.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting DT11 9, or just the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Things not to do:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets the pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance down Bournemouth Road.
- Beside the road, do not try draining it on your own.
The attendants working at any Blandford St Mary forecourt — the Tesco among them — will usually lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. It drops, because it's heavier than diesel, and settles down where the intake takes its supply from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Newtown last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
After it's pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. By daybreak, a car parked in Blandford St Mary with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it's only in that tank, nothing changes. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a fault of thin fuel. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits back out — and the following tankful will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Blandford St Mary or out in Langton Long Blandford, does more harm than nearly any other slip.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever across Dorset your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue still in the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Blandford St Mary?
It's not on purpose. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. It usually happens outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Blandford St Mary Church of England Primary School. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive near Pigeon Close. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Stour Inn, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same mistake, same first response — leave it off — wherever you happen to be in Blandford St Mary or the remainder of Dorset.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Blandford St Mary?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through your filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Maybe coming back from Pigeon Close Play Park, or part way across Blandford St Mary, your motor may run rough, smoke, drop pace, light up the dash or stall. When safe, stop and switch everything off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M27, under 50 miles from Blandford St Mary, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system, so driving towards Salisbury, under 25 miles away, gives a far bigger job than crossing Blandford St Mary to the car park by Hall & Woodhouse Visitor Centre. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to clean out once the engine has been run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has stopped. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage if it is spotted quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Blandford St Mary?
The car remains put, whether that is a street near Bryanston Gate, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt around Blandford St Mary, and our van comes to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether the motor has been run, because those answers decide the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after that tank is drained, on the spot. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is flushed right through because what remains won't flush out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when the motor has not run. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Lastly, the system is primed with fresh diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, by Holton Heath or on a driveway around Blandford St Mary. Our technicians check it runs correctly on clean diesel before we leave. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never has to go to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Blandford St Mary and where it is
Blandford St Mary is a suburban area situated on the banks of the River Stour in Dorset, with Blandford St Mary being close to the town of Blandford Forum. Blandford St Mary has a mix of housing types, but predominantly features terraced homes. Blandford St Mary is located near other small settlements, including Lower Blandford St Mary and Littleton, and is within commuting distance of the city of Salisbury. Blandford St Mary sits at an elevation of 39 metres above sea level, in a scenic riverside setting.
AdBlue drains across Dorset, Blandford St Mary included
AdBlue call-outs around Blandford St Mary are passed to teams that serve the towns around it — Blandford Forum, Lower Blandford St Mary as well as Littleton — and much of Dorset further out, throughout DT postcodes. Ring and check instead of guessing if you're close to a county line, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
No moving is needed. In Blandford St Mary, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: your vehicle is emptied on the spot, whether in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Blandford St Mary?
Because each callouts differ, a single price would not be fair. Three things change the price: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind Badgers.
What got in, what quantity, plus whether the engine ran: every Blandford St Mary enquiry begins by asking exactly that, before a figure, not after. Those replies narrow a range right down to one number.
Our price is quoted on the call, before a van sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. As the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
In Blandford St Mary and still alongside your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Blandford St Mary or anywhere in Dorset, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran.