AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bleasby? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the engine. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Being water-based, it will not ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once the pump starts drawing it. In Bleasby, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Bleasby
To do:
- Remove the keys, which prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly how much, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting NG14 7, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the car: the motor stays off.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not thin it.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch up Main Street.
- Don't try to drain it yourself by the kerbside.
Rolling your vehicle off the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Bleasby forecourt you're on, the BP or any other. On your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's squirted into the exhaust to clean the gases. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits underneath your diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Thurgarton yesterday and not switched on stays the straightforward one, as long as no one touches the key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and block filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it's flushed out. A vehicle left sitting in Bleasby with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing past them, and so the water content damages them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Gulf's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that's the main problem. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is in that tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot just be run through, since it does not burn. Deposits and corrosion remain after the following tankful, and AdBlue separates again from your diesel, so watering it won't help. That is why the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Fiskerton or the centre of Bleasby equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere across Nottinghamshire your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
Bleasby: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Usually it's never the forecourt: someone buys a bottle driving home and tips it in outside the house.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside Bleasby Church of England Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Hawthorn Close. One more version: dim light, the car park outside The Waggon and Horses, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a fleet motor, or the other vehicle of a home with one of each fuels — the vehicles people use the least. Wherever you are in Bleasby or the remainder of Nottinghamshire, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bleasby?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Through your filter, through the pipework, and — with any running — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Flintham Wood, say, or part way across Bleasby. No starting it again to check: stop once safe, then switch it off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Exit the M1, under 15 miles from Bleasby, by the first junction and stop safely, rather than driving on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, so heading towards Nottingham, under 15 miles away, gives a far bigger job than crossing Bleasby to the car park by St Mary's Church. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the motor has been started, and our technicians do all of it where your car has come to a stop. Spotted quickly, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
Bleasby: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest in Bleasby — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Thurgarton Village Hall — the van travels to the car. Three answers decide the work, and so before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly what quantity, plus whether the motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave together after your tank is emptied, on the spot. The fuel system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where the engine hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime your system, and that is the final step. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive around Bleasby or in a bay outside the nearest station. It is checked on new diesel to be sure it runs correctly before our technicians leave. As the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Bleasby itself
Bleasby is a village in Nottinghamshire, situated on the banks of the River Trent at an elevation of around 18 metres. Bleasby lies near the villages of Gibsmere, Goverton, and Morton, and is approximately 10.7 miles from Nottingham. Bleasby has a population of around 841 people and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Bleasby is located in the East Midlands region, about 111.2 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains across Nottinghamshire, Bleasby included
Gibsmere, Goverton and Morton are among the towns around Bleasby that the same vans serve, along with most of Nottinghamshire further out, throughout the NG postcode area. Ring and check instead of guessing when you are by a county line, or anywhere awkward to explain.
Bleasby is a village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Bleasby: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs differ, a single figure wouldn't be fair. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Methodist Chapel.
Ahead of a quote, never after, every enquiry from Bleasby opens with three checks: the liquid, the amount, and whether the engine ran. Their replies narrow the range down to one figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Bleasby: still next to your car?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move available. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Bleasby or anywhere within Nottinghamshire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.