Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Busbridge
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does your motor. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts when your pump starts drawing it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully flushed where your car sits in Busbridge. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Busbridge: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting GU7 1, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: your motor stays off.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so leave the vehicle off.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Brighton Road.
- By the road, don't attempt draining it on your own.
Rolling your vehicle away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Busbridge forecourt you are on, the Sainsbury's or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. 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, once tipped in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the same spot the pickup sucks from. When the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Godalming yesterday and not started stays the straightforward one, as long as no one turns the key.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. It eats at certain metals found in fuel systems, attacking whatever it touches till it is cleared completely. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in narrow passages. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage by morning for a vehicle sitting around Busbridge. Just inside your tank, it stays the same. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the JET and you have an issue of thin fuel. No damage comes while it stays put, blended into your diesel — only when the motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It does not burn, and so it can't just be run through. Whether your car is in Catteshall or the heart of Busbridge, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other mistake, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
As with petrol, there is good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits just in the tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, wherever the car has come to rest in Surrey.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Busbridge: how it ends up there
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, now and then behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. It usually takes place at home, from a container grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Busbridge CofE Aided Junior School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up the vehicle. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway close to Hambledon Road. Another pattern: darkness, a pub car park by Volunteer, and someone using that flap the first time.
It happens most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Busbridge or the rest of Surrey, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Busbridge?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed through the filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Holloway Hill Recreation Ground, say, or part way across Busbridge. Once you safely can, stop then switch it off — with no restarting to test. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M3, under 15 miles from Busbridge, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Busbridge to the car park by St John the Baptist, Busbridge is a very different job from a run towards Chichester, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the car has ended up. Spotted early, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Busbridge
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Busbridge: a side street close to Busbridge Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether your motor has run, since those answers determine the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after the tank is emptied, right there. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since residue will not clear away by itself. A test of your car follows at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the filter gets flushed or, if needed, swapped. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no problem, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
New diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that is the last step. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway around Busbridge or in a space by Godalming. Before we leave, our technicians check it's running smoothly with new diesel in. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Busbridge itself
Busbridge is a small village in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of around 97 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Busbridge is located near to several other rural areas, including Crownpits, Munstead Heath, and Holloway Hill. Busbridge has a population of approximately 807 residents and is around 30.6 miles from London. Busbridge is also relatively close to the city of Chichester, which is about 24.8 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Busbridge and across Surrey
Crownpits, Munstead Heath and Holloway Hill are among the towns around Busbridge that the same vans reach, along with most of Surrey beyond, over the GU postcode area. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking beats assuming, and so ring.
No towing is needed. In Busbridge, a rural village, a van that comes to you works: your vehicle is emptied where it stands, be it on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
Busbridge: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There's no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. Three things move the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether our van can reach it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight space behind Kingdom Hall.
For that in mind, each enquiry from Busbridge begins with the identical trio — what was put in, how much, whether the engine ran — before a quote. Given them, the range shrinks to one fixed figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the price on the phone. And you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Busbridge: still alongside the car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the best thing you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Busbridge or anywhere in Surrey.