Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Castleton Park
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your motor off then keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm starts till the engine sucks it round. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle sits around Castleton Park. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Castleton Park: the first few minutes
To do:
- Take the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting CF62 4, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to shift your car.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance up Castleton Road is too far to drive it.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it yourself.
Moving the car away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Castleton Park forecourt you're on, the Esso included. On the drive, your car stays exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a dedicated reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a driveway in St Athan Boys Village overnight and not started since counts as the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though once the motor runs, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. 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, and so it keeps running on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car parked in Castleton Park. Only in your tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water content harms them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Shell, and the issue is thinned fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting in your tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Whether your car sits in Gileston or the centre of Castleton Park, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other mistake, and the flush matters for more. Why: it will not stay blended, so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across The Vale of Glamorgan the vehicle is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Castleton Park?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars waits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside the local primary school the refill is hurried. Close to Castleton Park, a driver pours a bottle in at home after work. Another version: dim light, a pub car park by The Four Bells Inn, and a driver using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new car, a company car, or the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels — the vehicles drivers use the least. Wherever you're around Castleton Park or the remainder of The Vale of Glamorgan, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Castleton Park: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It's been drawn through the fuel filter and the lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Castleton Wood or halfway across Castleton Park. Once safe, stop and turn everything off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
On the M4, under 10 miles from Castleton Park, the next junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That is why crossing Castleton Park to park beside St Athan Library and a drive of under 15 miles towards Cardiff are very separate jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the engine has been running. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it's spotted soon.
Castleton Park: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest in Castleton Park — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by St Tathan's Church — our van travels to your car. Which fluid went in, roughly how much, plus if your motor has been run: we ask first, because those shape the work.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't clear away on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. You set off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive around Castleton Park or in a space outside Rhoose Cardiff Airport. It's tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs properly before we head off. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Castleton Park itself
Castleton Park is a small suburban area in The Vale of Glamorgan, situated near the coast and approximately 11 miles from Cardiff. Castleton Park has a relatively low elevation of around 25 metres, and its detached housing stock is typical of the area. Castleton Park is close to nearby places such as St Athan and Boys Village, and is within commuting distance of Cardiff.
Castleton Park and The Vale of Glamorgan: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in Castleton Park go to vans that serve the towns near it — St Athan, Beggars Pound plus Boys Village — and much of The Vale of Glamorgan further out, throughout CF postcodes. Near a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
No moving is needed. In Castleton Park, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: your vehicle is drained where it stands, be it on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Castleton Park?
There is no honest single quote, because the jobs are not the same. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of your car, because an open driveway is simpler for a technician to get to safely than a tight gap behind The Old School Hall.
Which fluid was put in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Castleton Park call opens by asking exactly those, before any figure, not after. With those replies, the range narrows to one firm figure.
You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Castleton Park and still alongside the car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best move available. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Castleton Park or anywhere within The Vale of Glamorgan, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.