Britannia: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the engine. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing starts until the engine pulls it round. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Britannia. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Britannia
Do these:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so don't bin it out.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting CF39 9, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Never:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the car: your motor remains off.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way along Coedcae Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the verge.
Ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the island if you're at a forecourt around Britannia, whether it is the Texaco or elsewhere. If you are on your own drive, leave it precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. Kept in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Cymmer last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue waits at the base of your tank, undrawn — but it will be the first thing through once the engine runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny channels and block filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it's cleared out. A vehicle left standing around Britannia with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Asda's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that's the main fault. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside the tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay after the following fill, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, and so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush counts so much, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm here than nearly any other mistake — in Birchgrove or the centre of Britannia alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever around Rhondda Cynon Taf the car sits.
Britannia: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Usually it is never the filling station: someone buys a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside the local primary school. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Eirw Road. Another version: dim light, the car park outside The Llwyncelyn, and someone using that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it switched off: that is the first step to an identical mistake, wherever in Britannia or the remainder of Rhondda Cynon Taf you are.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Britannia?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. It has been sucked through the filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
You may see the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Bronwydd Park or halfway across Britannia. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Keep it off rather than restarting it to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Britannia sits under 10 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and stop safely instead of carrying on.
Mileage counts: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into your system, so heading for Cardiff, under 15 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Britannia to the car park by Porth Elm Church. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where your car has stopped, and once the engine has run there is more of it. If it is spotted early, long-term damage is very rare.
Britannia: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A street by Porth Library, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest around Britannia, our engineers travel to it. Three answers shape the work, so first our engineers ask what got in, about the amount, and whether your engine has run.
Then your tank is cleared where the car sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Next, the filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. Then clean diesel, then a test of the car. If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes at the end. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Britannia or in a space outside Porth. The check before we leave is that it runs correctly on new diesel. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Britannia, for a moment
Britannia is a suburban area in Rhondda Cynon Taf, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 91 metres. Britannia lies near the communities of Llwyncelyn, Glynfach, and Porth, and is approximately 13 miles from Cardiff. Britannia has a population of around 3109 people, predominantly living in terraced housing. Britannia is located in a region with strong industrial heritage, near the Welsh capital city.
AdBlue drains across Britannia and Rhondda Cynon Taf
Throughout the CF postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs in Britannia reach much of Rhondda Cynon Taf too, Llwyncelyn, Glynfach and Porth among them. Ring and check rather than guess if you're close to a border, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
Britannia is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Britannia: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Valleys Kids.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, plus if it ran: each Britannia call opens with exactly those, before a quote, never after. Those answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Before a van sets off, you hear the quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Alongside the vehicle in Britannia, still?
Not touching your car is, right now, the most useful thing you can do. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Britannia or wherever in Rhondda Cynon Taf.