Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Brompton
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the motor off and leave your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. The trouble begins once it is sucked through your pump — it will not ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Brompton. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps right now, Brompton: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly what amount? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and our technicians can know.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting ME7 5, or simply the name of a street close by, so call from the car.
Don't:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it is pointless.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way down Prince Arthur Road.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
The staff on duty at any Brompton forecourt — the Shell included — will usually lend a hand rolling it clear if you ask. On the drive, your car stays exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. No part inside an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of it was intended to travel that way.
It doesn't combine. Once it is tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts not at all like diesel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. When your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it sits beneath your diesel, and that is how a car topped up in Lower Upnor last night and not started stays the simple case, as long as no one turns the key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel components, attacking whatever it touches till it's removed from the system. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. If the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Brompton leaves it worse. Inside that tank only, time does nothing. And there is the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that need it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Asda and you have a problem of thin fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside the tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay after the following fill, and AdBlue separates back out of the diesel, so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush matters more, and turning your key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Rochester or the heart of Brompton alike.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever around Kent the vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Brompton
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought when heading home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Brompton-Westbrook Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Wood Street. One more version: dim light, a pub car park outside The Cannon, and a driver using that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet vehicle, or the other car of a family with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. Anywhere around Kent, Brompton included, the slip does not change, and nor does the first step: keep it switched off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Brompton?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via your filter, along the pipework, and — given any running — on to the injection pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Black Lion Field, say, or part way across Brompton. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off rather than restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
Brompton lies under 3 miles from the M2; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
Mileage matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, and so heading towards Southend-on-Sea, under 15 miles away, makes a much bigger job than hopping across Brompton to the car park by Royal Engineers Museum. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to clean out once the engine has run, and we do all of it where your car has come to a stop. Noticed early, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Brompton
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a road beside Garrison Stadium, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station around Brompton, and our van travels to it. Which fluid was put in, about how much, and if your motor has turned over: our technicians ask first, because those shape the work.
Then the tank is drained where the car stands, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. After that, the filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a check of your car. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where your motor has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the last step. At that point our engineers fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay at Gillingham (Kent) or a driveway in Brompton. It's checked on new diesel to confirm it runs correctly before we go. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Brompton itself
Brompton is a suburban area in Kent, situated on the coast near the mouth of the Medway estuary. Brompton sits at an elevation of 39 metres, looking out over the Thames estuary towards Southend-on-Sea. Brompton is characterized by its predominantly flat housing stock, with many residents commuting to nearby cities like Southend-on-Sea and London. Brompton is also close to other nearby places, including Chatham and Upper Upnor.
AdBlue drains across Brompton and Kent
Chatham, Upper Upnor and Luton are among the places near Brompton that the same vans serve, along with most of Kent further out, over the ME postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
Brompton 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, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Brompton: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since each callouts differ, a flat price wouldn't be honest. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Memorial to General Gordon.
With that in mind, each enquiry from Brompton opens by asking the identical trio — what was put in, what quantity, if the engine ran — before any figure. The answers turn a range into a straight price.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the quote by phone. Then payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Brompton: still alongside your car?
Right now, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran is everything our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder throughout Kent, Brompton included.