AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bowmans? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and your ignition as well. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. The trouble begins once it's pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't blend with diesel. In Bowmans, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bowmans: the first few minutes
To do:
- So nobody can switch your ignition on, pull the keys away.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting DA1 3, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Never:
- Moving your car just a short way is no reason to start the motor.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, so it is pointless.
- Even a short way up Rochester Way is too far to drive the car.
- Draining your tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
On a forecourt around Bowmans, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. At home, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump isn't made to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely unlike fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools underneath it — the same place the intake sucks from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it sits beneath the diesel, which is how a car filled in Hook Green yesterday and never started remains the simple case, provided nobody touches the key.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What remains when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it's flushed out. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning around Bowmans makes things worse. Inside the tank only, waiting costs nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, and that is a separate kind of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more significant than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the Sainsbury's, and this problem is thinned fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside the tank, it does none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether your car is in Crayford or the heart of Bowmans, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest part on a fuel system, and without start-up, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere around Kent the vehicle has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Bowmans: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap — may look the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of layouts allow it. Mostly it is never the forecourt: someone picks up a container driving home and pours it in outside the house.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Wentworth Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Swan Lane. Another version: dim light, a pub car park outside The Dart, and someone using that flap for the first time.
Hired motors, new vehicles, company motors, or the second vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least familiar cars get it most. Wherever in Kent, Bowmans as well, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first step: keep it off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Bowmans?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — into the injection pump and each injector: that's where it has gone.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, lights on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Dartford Heath, say, or part way across Bowmans. When you safely can, pull over then turn it off — with no restarting to test. Every start pulls more of that through.
On the M25, under 3 miles from Bowmans, the next junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Bowmans to the car park by Dartford Heath is a very different job from a run towards London, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once the engine has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Caught early, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Bowmans?
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Bowmans: a side street close to Ashen Drive Library, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has been run, because those replies settle the work.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. The system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians arrive, if your motor hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding your system with clean diesel comes last. Starting the engine comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, outside Crayford or on a drive in Bowmans. It's tested on new diesel to make sure it runs properly before our technicians go. We do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Bowmans, briefly
Bowmans is a suburban area in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 44 metres, and is located approximately 14.1 miles from central London. Bowmans forms part of the wider residential area surrounding London, with nearby places including Heath Side, Maypole, and Coldblow. Bowmans has a population of around 1730 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
Bowmans and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
Heath Side, Maypole and Coldblow are among the towns near Bowmans that the same teams reach, along with much of Kent further out, throughout the DA postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Anywhere your car stands — a driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Bowmans, a residential suburb, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Bowmans: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Crayford Leisure Centre.
Which fluid got in, what quantity, and if it ran: each Bowmans enquiry opens by asking precisely those, ahead of any figure, never after. With those replies, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
Before anyone heads out, you are told our price by phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Bowmans: still alongside the car?
Then, do nothing — that's the best move there is. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if the engine ran is all our engineers need. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Kent, Bowmans included.