AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brea? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when the system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Brea, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the motor has run. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Brea: the first few minutes
To do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, pull your keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting TR14 9, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Never:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your vehicle: your engine remains off.
- Switching the key to ignition alone sets the pump running on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Even a short stretch down Chapel Hill is too far to drive the vehicle.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it on your own.
On a forecourt in Brea, whether it's the Tesco or another one, ask the staff to help you push the vehicle away from the pump. If you're on your own drive, leave the car exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Higher Condurrow last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, attacking any part it reaches till it is cleared from the system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage by morning for a vehicle parked around Brea. Only inside the tank, it stays the same. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger fault?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Morrisons, and this problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's inside the tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. It can't just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits again — and the next tankful won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Brea or out in Bosleake, costs more than almost any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Anywhere across Cornwall the car has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue still in the reservoir: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
Brea: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of motors place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and in dim light the two may appear the same. Nobody intends it. A container picked up while heading home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside Roskear Primary & Nursery School, after a warning light came 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 Carn Entral. One more pattern: dim light, the car park by Pendarves Arms, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
Rented cars, new vehicles, company vehicles, or the second vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it the most. Wherever you are in Brea or the remainder of Cornwall, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Brea: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
You may notice your motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Roskear Park or halfway across Brea. Once safe, pull over then switch everything off — without restarting to test. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Brea sits over 50 miles from the M5; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
Hopping across Brea to the car park by Chapel's Shaft Pump Engine House is one matter; heading towards Truro, under 15 miles away, is another, because every mile carries the AdBlue further in. So distance matters. Let us know about how far it had come.
There is more to clean out once the engine has run, and our engineers do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. If it's noticed quickly, long-term damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Brea?
The car remains put, whether that is a road near Engine House, a drive, a layby or a forecourt around Brea, and our van travels to it. Before anything else we ask what went in, about how much, and if the motor has run, since those answers decide this work.
Then that tank is cleared where the vehicle sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where your motor hasn't run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no fault, and it's quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
New diesel goes in to prime the system, and that's the last step. Whether it is a parking space by Camborne or a driveway around Brea, that is where we fire it up and you set off. Before leaving, our technicians check it's running smoothly with new diesel in. No garage is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Brea, for a moment
Brea is a small village in Cornwall, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 107 metres. Brea lies near the villages of Pengegon, Penhallick, and Tuckingmill, and is approximately 10 miles from the city of Truro. Brea has a population of around 601 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Brea is located in the South West region of England, about 241 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains across Brea and Cornwall
Pengegon, Penhallick and Tuckingmill are among the towns near Brea that the same teams serve, along with most of Cornwall further out, throughout the TR postcode area. Phone and check rather than guess if you are by a border, or somewhere tricky to explain.
A mobile service suits Brea, a village: there's no need to bring the vehicle to us, because our engineers empty it there, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Brea?
There's no honest single price, since the jobs aren't the same. What changes the price is, first, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Chimney.
What got in, what quantity, and if the engine ran: each Brea call opens with exactly that, ahead of a quote, not afterwards. Given them, a range shrinks to a single firm number.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still next to the car in Brea?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step there is. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Brea or anywhere across Cornwall.