Cantley: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave your motor off then leave the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Cantley, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Cantley
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the amount, and so don't bin it away.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting NR13 3, or just the name of a street close by, so call from the spot.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: your engine stays off.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out instead of blending.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Oak Tree Close.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants working at any Cantley forecourt — the Shell included — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. At home, your car stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, where it cleans the gas. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Cucumber Corner overnight and not started since is the straightforward one. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though when the motor runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is cleared out. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting till morning in Cantley leaves things worse. Inside the tank alone, waiting costs nothing. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a problem of thin fuel. No damage comes while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only when the engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the following tankful, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, so watering it won't work. Hence the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Cantley Corner or the heart of Cantley alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only inside that tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to empty, wherever the car has come to rest across Norfolk.
Cantley: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Freethorpe Community Primary and Nursery School. Close to Church Close, someone pours a container in on that drive after work. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, parked in the car park by The Reedcutter.
It crops up most in a rental, a new car, a fleet motor, or the spare vehicle of a family with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers use least. Wherever you're around Cantley or the remainder of Norfolk, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Cantley: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the fuel filter, along the lines, and — given any running — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's where it travels.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each might show up, perhaps midway across Cantley or coming back from Cantley Primary School Field. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Keep the vehicle off rather than restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Cantley lies over 50 miles from the M11; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and stop safely rather than driving on.
Hopping across Cantley to the car park by Saint Margaret is one matter; driving towards Norwich, under 10 miles away, is another, because every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Let us know about how far it had come.
Once your engine has been started, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Spotted soon, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
Cantley: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Anywhere it has stopped around Cantley — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street by Cantley Village Hall — our van comes to the vehicle. The job depends on three answers, and we ask for first — what went in, the quantity, and if your engine has run.
Then your tank is drained where your car waits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through since what remains won't flush away unaided. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that fresh diesel, then a check of your vehicle. Engine not run? Then count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Clean diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. After that we start the engine and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside the nearest station or a drive in Cantley. Before we leave, we confirm it's running properly with clean diesel in. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. Afterwards, there is paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Cantley
Cantley is a small village in Norfolk, situated inland at a low elevation of around 12 metres, and is located near the villages of Hassingham and Limpenhoe. Cantley has a population of approximately 509 people and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Cantley is close to the city of Norwich, which is about 9.7 miles away, and is also within a reasonable distance from London, being around 101.8 miles from the capital. Cantley remains a quiet rural community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains across Cantley and Norfolk
Hassingham, Limpenhoe and Southwood are among the places around Cantley that the same vans reach, together with most of Norfolk further out, over the NR postcode area. Phone and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Wherever the car stands — a driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Cantley, a rural village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Cantley: the cost of fixing it
Not one flat figure would be honest, because every job is different. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Cantley VIllage Sign.
Before a figure, never after, every call from Cantley opens with three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus if the engine ran. Once those are known, a range turns into one fixed number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Check your policy whilst we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In Cantley and still next to your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the best move there is. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Cantley or anywhere in Norfolk, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran.