Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bolton-le-Sands
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your motor off and leave the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it won't burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble only comes once the pump starts pulling it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully purged where your car sits in Bolton-le-Sands. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bolton-le-Sands
Do:
- Take your keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly how much, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting LA5 8, or just the name of a street nearby, so phone from the spot.
Don't:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your car: your engine stays off.
- Turning your key to ignition alone starts the pump running on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Never drive it anywhere, not even a short distance along St Michael's Lane.
- Beside the road, do not try draining it on your own.
On a forecourt in Bolton-le-Sands, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car away from the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays apart instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. When the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits beneath your diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Nether Kellet yesterday and not started stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns your key.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight around Bolton-le-Sands leaves things worse. Inside your tank alone, waiting does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing past them, so the water content harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Logs Direct's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that is the main issue. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside that tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain after the following fill, and AdBlue separates again from your diesel, and so watering it won't work. That is why the flush matters more, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Crag Bank or the heart of Bolton-le-Sands alike.
As with petrol, there is good news. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits only inside that tank, the simplest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest around Lancashire.
Bolton-le-Sands: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors waits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is not the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Bolton-le-Sands Church of England Primary School. Close to Bolton Lane, a driver tips a container in at home in the evening. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Blue Anchor, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
The least known vehicles get it the most — rentals, brand-new ones, fleet ones, and the spare motor in a family with one of each fuels. An identical slip, an identical first step — leave it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Bolton-le-Sands or the remainder of Lancashire.
Bolton-le-Sands: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and any running time carries it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any might appear, perhaps midway across Bolton-le-Sands or returning from Bolton-le-Sands Cricket Club. No starting it again to test: pull over when safe, then turn everything off. Every start pulls more of that through.
On the M6, under 3 miles from Bolton-le-Sands, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Bolton-le-Sands to the car park by St Mary of the Angels Church is a very different job from a run towards Lancaster, under 5 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. Permanent damage is very unusual if it's spotted quickly.
Bolton-le-Sands: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Bolton-le-Sands: a side street close to St Mary of the Angels Parish Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies shape the job, so first our technicians ask which fluid was put in, about the amount, plus if the engine has turned over.
Then the tank is drained where the vehicle waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned right through since residue won't wash away unaided. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when your motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Finally, your system is primed with clean diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, outside Carnforth or on a drive in Bolton-le-Sands. Our engineers check it runs correctly on clean diesel before leaving. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to go to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Bolton-le-Sands, for a moment
Bolton-le-Sands is a coastal village in Lancashire, situated near the city of Lancaster and overlooking Morecambe Bay. Bolton-le-Sands has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Bolton-le-Sands is close to nearby places such as Bolton Town End, Slyne, and Hest Bank, and is about 3.7 miles from Lancaster. Bolton-le-Sands has a relatively small population of around 1172 people.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Bolton-le-Sands included
AdBlue jobs around Bolton-le-Sands are passed to teams that cover the places near it — Bolton Town End, Slyne as well as Hest Bank — and much of Lancashire beyond, across LA postcodes. Guessing won't help by a border or somewhere tricky to describe; phone and ask.
Bolton-le-Sands is a coastal village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Bolton-le-Sands?
There is no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. Three things move the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Old Free Grammar School.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, and if it ran: each Bolton-le-Sands call opens by asking precisely that, ahead of any figure, not after. With those replies, a range narrows to a single fixed figure.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Bolton-le-Sands: still alongside the car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best move available. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Bolton-le-Sands or wherever in Lancashire.