AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Castle Green? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep your engine off and leave your ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it's sucked through your lines — it will not ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly cleaned where the car stands around Castle Green. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Castle Green: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- So nobody can turn the ignition on, take the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so do not throw it out.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting S36 6, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Shifting your car just a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Turning your key to ignition alone sets the pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not thin it.
- Never drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance up Bosville Street.
- Emptying the tank yourself by the road is not one to try.
The attendants working at any Castle Green forecourt — the Cecil Penney Ltd included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
It doesn't blend. Once it is poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Cubley last night and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of the tank, untouched — though it would be the first thing through if the motor runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage come from there. What remains once the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and block filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's cleared out. A car left standing around Castle Green with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. And there is the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that rely on it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Texaco's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that's the whole issue. Damage just comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside the tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, because it separates back out — and the next tankful won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Castle Green or out in Penistone, costs more than nearly any other slip.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across South Yorkshire the vehicle is standing.
Castle Green: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the forecourt: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
Usually, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Springvale Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Castle Lane. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside Cubley Hall, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the spare motor in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people know the least. Wherever you're around Castle Green or the rest of South Yorkshire, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Castle Green?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been pulled through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
You may see the motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Memorial Ground or halfway across Castle Green. No restarting to check: stop once it is safe, then turn everything off. Every start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M1, under 5 miles from Castle Green, at the next junction and park somewhere safe, not carrying on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into the system. That is why crossing Castle Green to park beside Penistone Church Football Ground and a drive of under 15 miles for Sheffield are such different jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it's caught quickly.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Castle Green: what it takes
A road by Penistone Sheep, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: wherever the car has come to rest around Castle Green, our technicians travel to it. Three answers shape the job, so first we ask which fluid went in, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine has run.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. A careful flush counts far more after AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains will not wash out on its own. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then your car is tested. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where your motor has not run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Lastly, the system is primed with clean diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you head off from where your car is parked, at Penistone or on a driveway in Castle Green. Before we go, we make sure it is running properly with clean diesel in. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. At the end, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Castle Green itself
Castle Green is a suburban area situated on the riverside in South Yorkshire, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 3420 residents. Castle Green sits at an elevation of 229 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape and located near other neighbourhoods such as Spring Vale and The Green. Castle Green is close to the city of Sheffield, approximately 11 miles away, and is part of the wider Sheffield urban area. Castle Green has a relatively small but distinct community within the region.
AdBlue drains across Castle Green and South Yorkshire
Spring Vale, The Green and Longley Ings are among the places around Castle Green that the same teams reach, together with most of South Yorkshire beyond, over the S postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a border or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
A van that comes to you fits Castle Green, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, because we drain it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Castle Green: the cost of fixing it
No flat price could be fair, since each job differs. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it rests on where the car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Penistone Library.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, plus if it ran: each Castle Green enquiry opens with precisely that, ahead of a quote, never afterwards. Once they are known, a range becomes a single fixed number.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Castle Green and still beside your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move there is. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in Castle Green or anywhere within South Yorkshire, after you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.