AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Blue Anchor? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave the motor off and leave your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system draws it in. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully rinsed where your car sits around Blue Anchor. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Blue Anchor
Things to do:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting SA4 3, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Don't:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the instant your ignition goes on, so keep the car off.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Blaencedi.
- By the road, do not try draining it on your own.
Moving the vehicle away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Blue Anchor forecourt you're on, the Tesco or any other. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Stored in a dedicated tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
It doesn't combine. After it is poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Pen-clawdd 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 drawn it in.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel components, working on whatever it touches till it is removed from your system. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow passages. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting overnight in Blue Anchor leaves it worse. Inside your tank only, time costs nothing. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water gives none of that, and that is a second kind of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have an issue of thin fuel. Blended into your diesel and left still, it's harmless for now; running your engine does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Deposits and corrosion stay after the next tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of your diesel, and so thinning it won't help. Hence the flush counts so much, and turning the key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Poundffald or the centre of Blue Anchor equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. Clearing a tank is the simplest part on a fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere across Swansea the car has stopped.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Blue Anchor
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap — can look the same. No one intends it; plenty of layouts allow it. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle bought en route home, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside the local primary school, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone tops up the car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Blue Anchor Road. Else, in dim light outside Royal Oak, the car is refilled by someone opening that flap for the first time.
The least known cars get it the most — hire cars, new cars, fleet ones, and the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to the same mistake, wherever in Blue Anchor or the rest of Swansea you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Blue Anchor, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Via the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it has gone.
You may see your engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Gower Golf Club or halfway across Blue Anchor. No restarting to test: pull over when safe, then turn it off. Every start pulls more of it through.
Blue Anchor lies under 5 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up safely instead of driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Blue Anchor to the car park by Gower Fresh Christmas Trees is a very different job from a run towards Swansea, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the flushing where your car has ended up, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. If it is caught soon, lasting damage is very unusual.
Blue Anchor: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A road by Capel y Crwys, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever the car has come to rest around Blue Anchor, our engineers travel to it. Which fluid was put in, roughly the quantity, and if your motor has been run: our engineers ask first, since those shape the job.
Next, draining the tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. A careful flush matters much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since residue will not wash out by itself. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed when it has to be. After that clean diesel, then a test of your vehicle. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the system, and that's the final step. You set off as soon as our technicians have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway in Blue Anchor or in a bay outside Bynea. Before we leave, we make sure it's running properly with clean diesel in. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Blue Anchor and where it is
Blue Anchor is a small coastal village in Swansea, situated near the coast at an elevation of 69 metres. Blue Anchor lies approximately 6.8 miles west of Swansea and is surrounded by nearby places such as Pen-y-Lan and Parc-hendy. Blue Anchor has a population of around 552 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Blue Anchor is located within a short distance of other local communities, including Wernbwll.
AdBlue drains around Blue Anchor and across Swansea
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs in Blue Anchor also cover the locations round it, Pen-y-Lan, Parc-hendy and Wernbwll among them, and most of Swansea beyond, across the SA postcode area. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A mobile service fits Blue Anchor, a coastal village: you have no need to take your car to us, since we empty it there, on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Blue Anchor?
Since each jobs differ, a single price would not be fair. Three things shift the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether our van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind Old School House.
Ahead of any figure, never afterwards, each enquiry from Blue Anchor begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. Once they are known, a range turns into one fixed number.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
In Blue Anchor and still beside the vehicle?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Blue Anchor or anywhere within Swansea, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran.