Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bucknall
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm happens until your engine pulls it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Bucknall, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your motor has run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Bucknall, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
Do:
- Pocket the keys, and that stops someone turning the power on.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about what quantity, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Say a ST2 8 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Don't do these:
- Don't start your engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Turning the key to ignition alone sets the pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short way up Stevenson Road is too far to drive it.
- Emptying that tank on your own beside the road is not one to try.
The staff working at any Bucknall forecourt — the Esso included — will usually help pushing it clear if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and a pump cannot take urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the same place the pickup draws from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Birches Head last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Once it is pulled in, the damage takes two forms. What is left when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow passages and clog filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it's flushed out. A motor left sitting around Bucknall with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water part harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is commonly worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Gulf, and the problem is thinned fuel. No harm comes while it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only when the engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits again — and the following fill won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Bucknall or out in Berry Hill, costs more than nearly any other error.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Anywhere around Staffordshire your car has come to rest, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Bucknall: how it ends up there
It is not on purpose. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Kingsland CofE Academy the refill is hurried. Near Fellbrook Lane, someone pours a bottle in at home after work. Else, after dark by Trent Tavern, your car is topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a company car, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. Anywhere in Staffordshire, Bucknall as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Bucknall?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Via your filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
You may see the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Hulton Abbey Park or halfway across Bucknall. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Exit the M6, under 5 miles from Bucknall, by the next junction and stop safely, not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Bucknall to park beside Marychurch Centre & Parish Office and a drive of under 3 miles towards Stoke-on-Trent are very different jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to flush once the engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the car has stopped. If it is caught soon, lasting damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Bucknall?
Wherever it has stopped around Bucknall — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by St Mary — the van comes to the vehicle. Three replies shape the job, and so first we ask what was put in, about the amount, plus if your motor has run.
Next, emptying that tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is flushed right through since what remains will not flush away by itself. Fresh diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians get there, if the engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the final step. You set off as soon as our engineers have started the car, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway around Bucknall or in a space outside Stoke-On-Trent. It's tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs correctly before we go. No garage is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Bucknall itself
Bucknall is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, sitting alongside the River Trent at an elevation of around 132 metres. Bucknall is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock and is situated near other local neighbourhoods such as Townsend and Abbey Hulton. Bucknall has a population of approximately 6192 residents and is close to the city centre of Stoke-on-Trent, being only 1.2 miles away. Bucknall is also part of the wider West Midlands region, with London being around 135 miles to the south.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Bucknall included
Throughout the ST postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs around Bucknall serve most of Staffordshire too, Townsend, Abbey Hulton and Northwood among them. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Bucknall 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, our engineers drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Bucknall: the cost of fixing it
Not one flat figure would be honest, since each job is different. 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 a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Bucknall Methodist Church.
That is why every call from Bucknall starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. While the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
In Bucknall and still beside your car?
Then, do nothing — that's the best move there is. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Bucknall or wherever within Staffordshire.