Briggate: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and the ignition as well. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm happens until the engine pulls it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Briggate, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the engine has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do straight away, Briggate: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Take the keys out, so no one switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a PE7 1 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Never:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the car: the motor stays off.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel will not weaken it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short stretch up Ramsey Road.
- Beside the road, do not attempt draining it yourself.
The attendants on duty at any Briggate filling station — the BP included — will usually lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it just where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. Stored in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust to treat the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, because it's denser than diesel, and settles down where the pickup takes its fuel from. A car topped up on a drive in Church Field overnight and not started since counts as the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but when your motor runs, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and narrow passages; and, since it attacks certain metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it remains in there. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, leaving it till morning around Briggate makes things worse. In your tank only, waiting costs nothing. The water in it causes damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a fault of thin fuel. Blended through your diesel and left still, it is harmless for now; running your motor is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Bassenhally Field or the middle of Briggate.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Cambridgeshire your car is sitting.
Briggate: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — may look the same. No one means it; plenty of designs invite it. Mostly it is not the forecourt: someone buys a container driving home and pours it in at home.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. The top-up is hurried outside Park Lane Primary & Nursery School, after your dash flashed with a warning as the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Braemar Gardens. Another version: darkness, a pub car park by The Boat Inn, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It happens most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever around Cambridgeshire, Briggate as well, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first response: leave it switched off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Briggate, and the motor started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through your filter, along the lines, and — given any running time — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's where it has gone.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Manor Field, say, or midway across Briggate. When you safely can, pull over and turn it off — with no restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the Great North Road, under 10 miles from Briggate, at the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Briggate to park beside St Andrews and a drive of under 5 miles for Peterborough are very different jobs. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to clean out once the engine has been started, and our technicians do all of it where the car has ended up. Noticed quickly, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Briggate
Wherever it has come to rest around Briggate — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a street beside Whittlesey Library & Learning Centre — the van travels to your vehicle. Three answers decide the work, so before anything else our engineers ask which fluid went in, roughly the amount, plus whether your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave together after that tank is drained, right there. The system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. Not run? In that case count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming the fuel system with fresh diesel comes at the end. You set off as soon as we have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive around Briggate or in a bay at Whittlesea. The test before we go is that it runs properly on clean diesel. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Briggate and where it is
Briggate is a suburban area located on the riverside in Cambridgeshire, with a low elevation of around 5 metres. Briggate sits near the city of Peterborough, approximately 4.8 miles away, and is close to nearby places such as Whittlesey and Inhams End. Briggate is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is home to around 2647 residents. Briggate is situated in a region that is relatively close to London, at a distance of 72.3 miles.
AdBlue drains in Briggate and across Cambridgeshire
Whittlesey, Inhams End and Reach are among the towns near Briggate that the same vans serve, along with most of Cambridgeshire beyond, over the PE postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Briggate is a residential suburb, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Briggate: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Not one flat figure would be fair, since each job is different. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind St Mary's Church.
Which fluid was put in, how much, and whether the engine ran: every Briggate enquiry begins with exactly those, before any quote, not afterwards. Their replies narrow the range down to one figure.
The price is given on the call, before a van sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Briggate and still next to the car?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Briggate or anywhere in Cambridgeshire.