AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Carterton? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your engine off and keep your ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. The trouble begins once it's pulled through the lines — it won't burn, and it won't combine with diesel. In Carterton, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Carterton
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, and that prevents someone turning the power on.
- Put the hazards on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- Which fluid, and about how much volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and we will know.
- Tell us a postcode starting OX18 3, or whichever street lies nearest, and the van reaches you directly — so ring wherever you stand.
Never do these:
- Moving the vehicle just a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is pointless.
- Keep the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Alvescot Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the verge.
The attendants on duty at any Carterton filling station — the Asda included — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. No part inside an injection pump is made for this fluid — and none of it was meant to travel that way.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the same spot the pickup draws from. When your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle filled in Black Bourton yesterday and never started remains the straightforward one, provided nobody turns the key.
From there it does two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps running on the parts it hits for as long as it remains there. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting till morning in Carterton makes it worse. Inside the tank only, time does nothing. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a second kind of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the BP, and this problem is thinned fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside that tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether the vehicle is in Kencot or the centre of Carterton, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Oxfordshire the vehicle is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Carterton: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars waits right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the forecourt: a driver buys a bottle driving home and tips it in outside the house.
A couple of familiar ways cover most cases. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Gateway Primary School the top-up is hurried. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a driveway close to Brize Norton Road. One more pattern: darkness, the car park by Golden Eagle, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a company motor, or the spare motor of a home with both fuels — the cars drivers use least. Wherever you are around Carterton or the remainder of Oxfordshire, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Carterton?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. Through the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from queens jubilee 2012 wood, say, or part way across Carterton. No starting it again to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M4, under 25 miles from Carterton, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Carterton to the car park by St John the Evangelist is one thing; driving for Oxford, under 15 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has run there is more of it. If it is noticed early, permanent damage is very unusual.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Carterton
The vehicle remains put, whether that is a street near Carterton Library, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt around Carterton, and our van travels to it. Which fluid went in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has been run: we ask before all else, because those decide the job.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't clear away by itself. Next, your filter: cleaned, or replaced if it must be. Then clean diesel, and then a test of the vehicle. Engine not run? In that case count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on clean diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where your car is parked, at Shipton or on a driveway in Carterton. The check before we go is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. As the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Carterton, for a moment
Carterton is a town in Oxfordshire, situated in the south of the county, approximately 14 miles west of Oxford. Carterton sits in a relatively flat area of the Cotswolds, at an elevation of around 94 metres, and is surrounded by nearby villages such as Brize Norton and Alvescot. Carterton has a population of around 13,879 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Carterton is also within commuting distance of London, being around 65 miles to the west of the capital.
AdBlue drains across Carterton and Oxfordshire
Throughout the OX postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs in Carterton serve most of Oxfordshire as well, Brize Norton, Shilton and Alvescot among them. Near a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
A van that comes to you suits Carterton, a town: there's no need to take your vehicle to us, because we empty it on the spot, in a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Carterton
No flat figure could be honest, because each job differs. What shifts the cost is, first, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind William Carter.
Before a figure, not after, every enquiry from Carterton opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and if the engine ran. Their answers shrink a range right down to one figure.
The price is quoted on the call, before anyone sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is travelling, dig out your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Next to your car around Carterton, right now?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Carterton or anywhere in Oxfordshire.