AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Cae-Bricks? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing happens until the motor pulls it round. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully cleaned where the car sits in Cae-Bricks. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Cae-Bricks, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Things to do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the amount, so do not throw it out.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a SA5 8 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Don't:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the instant the ignition goes on, so keep the car off.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it is wasted.
- Even a short distance up Pentregethin Road is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Draining that tank on your own beside the road is not worth trying.
On a forecourt around Cae-Bricks, whether it's the Murco or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car clear of the petrol pump. At home, the car remains just as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it treats the fumes. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the very place the intake draws from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, which is why a car filled in Brynhyfryd last night and never switched on remains the simple one, as long as no one touches the key.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it touches till it is removed from your system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. A car left standing around Cae-Bricks with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second form of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger fault?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Texaco and you have an issue of thin fuel. Blended through your diesel and left still, it is harmless for now; running your motor does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the following fill won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Cae-Bricks or out in Mayhill, costs more than almost any other error.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on a fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue stays in there — wherever around Swansea your vehicle sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Cae-Bricks
Many vehicles place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then under a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear the same. No one intends it. It usually happens outside the house, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, a parent refills the vehicle. Someone pours the bottle in outside their house, right off Middle Road, as the day ends. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, parked in the car park outside Maltsters Arms.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each fuels — the cars drivers use the least. Leave it off: that is the first step to the same slip, anywhere around Cae-Bricks or the remainder of Swansea you are.
Cae-Bricks: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Through the filter, along the lines, and — with any running time — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it has gone.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Cwmbwrla Park, say, or midway across Cae-Bricks. Stop when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off instead of restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Cae-Bricks sits under 3 miles from the M4; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Cae-Bricks to the car park by Mount Calvary Baptist Church is a very different job from a run towards Swansea, under 3 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
We do all of the flushing where the car has stopped, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage if it is noticed quickly.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Cae-Bricks
A road by Saint Michael and All Angels, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the car has stopped in Cae-Bricks, we come to it. Which fluid was put in, about the quantity, and whether the motor has turned over: our engineers ask first, because those decide the job.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after that tank is emptied, right there. The fuel system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of the car follows at the end, once fresh diesel goes in and the filter gets flushed or, if needed, replaced. Not run? Then expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
The last step is to bleed the system on fresh diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, at Swansea or on a drive around Cae-Bricks. It's tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs correctly before we head off. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Cae-Bricks itself
Cae-Bricks is a suburban area located on the coast near Swansea, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Cae-Bricks sits at an elevation of 52 metres, close to the city centre and nearby communities such as Cwmbwrla and Manselton. Cae-Bricks is part of the larger Swansea urban area, with the city's maritime history and cultural attractions within easy reach. Cae-Bricks has a population of around 7555 people, living in a variety of predominantly terraced homes.
AdBlue drains around Cae-Bricks and across Swansea
AdBlue call-outs around Cae-Bricks are passed to teams that serve the towns around it — Cwmbwrla, Cwmdu as well as Manselton — and most of Swansea further out, throughout SA postcodes. Close to a border, or somewhere awkward to explain? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
Cae-Bricks is a residential suburb, and a call-out 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 sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Cae-Bricks
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. Three things shift the cost: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight space behind Christ Well URC.
With that in mind, every call from Cae-Bricks begins by asking the same trio — which fluid was put in, how much, if it ran — ahead of any figure. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Alongside the vehicle in Cae-Bricks, right now?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step there is. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it ran are all our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Swansea, Cae-Bricks included.