AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Blowick? Don't Start It
Motor off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system pulls it in. In Blowick, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Blowick
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, and that stops anyone switching the electrics on.
- Near moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, and so don't throw it away.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting PR9 7, or simply the name of a street nearby, so phone from the spot.
Not to do:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not thin it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short way up Cobden Road.
- Emptying your tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
The staff working at any Blowick forecourt — the BP included — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
It doesn't combine. Once it's poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Brown Edge overnight and has not been started since. The AdBlue sits at the base of your tank, untouched — though it would be the first thing through once the engine starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car sitting in Blowick. Only in your tank, it stays stable. Then there is the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Tesco and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's in your tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle is in Southport or the heart of Blowick, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere in Merseyside the car has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still in the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Blowick
It's not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. 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 couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Bishop David Sheppard Church of England Primary School. Close to Gladstone Road, someone pours a container in on the drive after work. One more pattern: dim light, a pub car park by Thatch And Thistle, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're around Blowick or the rest of Merseyside, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Blowick, and the engine started?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. Your filter and lines have had it pulled through, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Maybe returning from Southport Old Links Golf Club, or part way across Blowick, your motor might run lumpy, smoke, drop pace, flash the dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M58, under 10 miles from Blowick, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Blowick to park near Canning Road Evangelical Church and a drive of under 15 miles towards Preston are such distinct jobs. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There's more to clean out once the engine has been run, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it is caught early.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Blowick: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped around Blowick — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Victoria Methodist Church — the van travels to the vehicle. The work rests on three answers, which our engineers ask for first — which fluid was put in, the amount, and whether your motor has turned over.
Then the tank is cleared where the vehicle sits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of your car comes at the end, after clean diesel is added and the fuel filter gets flushed or, if needed, replaced. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where your motor hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to bleed your system on clean diesel. Whether it's a parking space at Meols Cop or a drive in Blowick, that is where our technicians start the car and you set off. The test before our engineers go is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a garage. At the end, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Blowick and where it is
Blowick is a coastal suburban area in Merseyside, situated near the towns of High Park, Pool Hey, and Churchtown. Blowick has a relatively low elevation of around 6 metres above sea level, and its population of approximately 6766 people live in predominantly semi-detached housing. Blowick is located near the city of Preston, which is about 13.7 miles away, and is part of the larger North West region of England. Blowick's coastal setting influences its local environment and community character.
AdBlue drains across Blowick and Merseyside
AdBlue jobs in Blowick go to teams that serve the towns near it — High Park, Pool Hey as well as Churchtown — and most of Merseyside further out, throughout PR postcodes. Ring and ask rather than guess when you're by a county line, or somewhere tricky to explain.
Anywhere the car stands — your driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers empty it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; that suits Blowick, a residential suburb, well.
Blowick: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Because the callouts vary, a single figure wouldn't be fair. Whether the 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 location of your car, because an open driveway is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Gymphobics.
Before any quote, never afterwards, each enquiry from Blowick opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus if the engine ran. When those are answered, a range becomes a single firm number.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Still alongside the vehicle in Blowick?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Blowick or wherever within Merseyside, once you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.