Brightwell-cum-Sotwell: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your motor off and leave the ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only starts once the pump begins drawing it. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Brightwell-cum-Sotwell. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Remove the keys, and that stops anyone turning the power on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, and so do not throw it out.
- Ring right where you are. Say a OX10 0 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Moving your car just a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along West End.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it on your own.
Ask the attendants to help you move the vehicle off the pumps if you are at a forecourt in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, whether it's the Esso or somewhere else. On the drive, the vehicle stays exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Shillingford yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine runs, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it hits for as long as it remains there. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight around Brightwell-cum-Sotwell leaves it worse. In your tank alone, waiting does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more major than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on BP's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the main fault. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is inside the tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. It doesn't burn, so it cannot just be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain through the following fill, and AdBlue separates back from your diesel, and so thinning it won't help. That is why the flush matters more, and turning your key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Little Wittenham or the centre of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell equally.
As with petrol, there's good news. Clearing a tank is the simplest part on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever in Oxfordshire the car sits.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell?
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then under one flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts allow it. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets hurried outside Brightwell-Cum-Sotwell Church of England Primary School, after the dash lit up with a warning as the kids were taken in. A driver tips the container in outside their house, right off Brightwell Street, as the day ends. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside The Red Lion, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
Rented vehicles, brand-new cars, fleet cars, or the second car in a home with one of each: the least known vehicles get it the most. Keep it off: that's the first response to the same slip, anywhere in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell or the rest of Oxfordshire you are.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Brightwell-cum-Sotwell?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Given any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed through the fuel filter and pipework.
Rough running, smoke, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: any may show up, perhaps part way across Brightwell-cum-Sotwell or returning from Millennium Wood. No starting it again to test: stop once safe, then switch everything off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
On the M40, under 10 miles from Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
A quick hop across Brightwell-cum-Sotwell to the car park by Stewart Village Hall is one thing; heading towards Oxford, under 15 miles away, is another, because every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has ended up, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage if it is spotted early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell?
A road beside Saint Agatha, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere the car has stopped around Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, our engineers come to it. Three replies shape the job, so first we ask what got in, roughly what quantity, and if the motor has turned over.
Right there, the tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. Residue from AdBlue won't wash away unaided, so the whole system gets a full flush, which matters much more here than for petrol. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the system with clean diesel comes at the end. Starting it comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, by Cholsey or on a drive in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell. The test before our engineers go is that it runs properly on new diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and where it is
Brightwell-cum-Sotwell is a village in south Oxfordshire, situated near the River Thames and approximately 10 miles south of Oxford. Brightwell-cum-Sotwell has a low elevation of around 51 metres above sea level, and is surrounded by other small villages such as Mackney and North Moreton. Brightwell-cum-Sotwell is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting and relatively affluent population.
AdBlue drains across Oxfordshire, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell included
AdBlue call-outs in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell are passed to vans that serve the towns around it — Mackney, Slade End as well as North Moreton — and most of Oxfordshire further out, across OX postcodes. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Brightwell-cum-Sotwell is a rural village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians 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 around Brightwell-cum-Sotwell?
Each job is different, and so no single price is honest. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the 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 our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Red Telephone Box.
For that reason, each enquiry from Brightwell-cum-Sotwell begins by asking the same trio — what got in, how much, if it ran — before any quote. Their answers shrink a range right down to a single number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, check your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
Still alongside the car around Brightwell-cum-Sotwell?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell or wherever within Oxfordshire.