AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Castle Hill? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave your motor off then leave the ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. The harm begins once it's pulled through your pump — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully cleaned where the car sits around Castle Hill. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Castle Hill
Do:
- Pocket your keys, and that prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Call just where you are. Say a IP1 6 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Never do these:
- Shifting your car just a short way is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way along Stratford Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Rolling the car off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Castle Hill forecourt you are on, the BP or any other. On the drive, your car stays just as it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very spot the pickup sucks from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Westerfield last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell harm overnight for a car parked in Castle Hill. Just in the tank, it stays the same. Then there is the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that rely on it most — the injection pump and each injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that is the whole problem. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting in the tank, it does nothing.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. It cannot just be run through, because it does not burn. Whether the vehicle is in Bramford or the centre of Castle Hill, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits only inside the tank, the easiest bit of the whole system to clear, anywhere the car has come to rest around Suffolk.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Castle Hill
Many motors put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and after dark the two may appear identical. Nobody intends it. Mostly it is not the filling station: a driver buys a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside St Pancras Catholic Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills the car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Coleridge Road. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap refills your car in dim light, parked in the car park outside Man on the Moon.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new car, a company vehicle, or the other motor of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. An identical mistake, an identical first step — keep it switched off — anywhere you happen to be around Castle Hill or the remainder of Suffolk.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Castle Hill?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Via the filter, through the pipework, and — with any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Maybe returning from Castle Hill Recreation Ground, or part way across Castle Hill, the engine may go lumpy, smoke, lose power, light up the dash or cut out. No restarting to test: stop once safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M11, under 50 miles from Castle Hill, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Mileage counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system, and so heading towards Colchester, under 25 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Castle Hill to the car park by Castle Hill Congregational Church. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once your engine has run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has ended up. If it's noticed soon, long-term damage is very unusual.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Castle Hill: what it takes
The car stays put, whether that's a street near Whitton Baptist Church, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station around Castle Hill, and our van travels to it. Three answers shape the work, and so first our engineers ask what went in, about the amount, plus if your motor has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one when your tank is emptied, on the spot. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't clear away on its own. Testing your vehicle comes at the end, once fresh diesel goes in and your filter gets cleaned or, if necessary, swapped. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to bleed the fuel system on clean diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, outside Westerfield or on a drive around Castle Hill. Before we go, we confirm it is running properly with clean diesel in. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Castle Hill
Castle Hill is a suburban area in Suffolk, situated inland at an elevation of 39 metres, and forms part of the larger Ipswich urban area. Castle Hill lies near the villages of Whitton, Westbourne, and Akenham, and is approximately 16.5 miles from Colchester. Castle Hill has a population of around 8925 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Castle Hill is also within commuting distance of London, being around 66.9 miles from the capital.
AdBlue drains across Suffolk, Castle Hill included
Whitton, Westbourne and Akenham are among the places around Castle Hill that the same teams reach, along with much of Suffolk further out, throughout the IP postcode area. Close to a boundary, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
Castle Hill is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Castle Hill: the cost of fixing it
Each job is different, and so no fixed price would be fair. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Castle Hill Community Centre.
Which fluid got in, what quantity, plus whether it ran: each Castle Hill call begins by asking precisely that, before any quote, never after. Once those are known, a range turns into a single fixed number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Still alongside the car around Castle Hill?
Not touching your car is, then, the most useful move you can do. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it ran are all our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Suffolk, Castle Hill too.