Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Chivenor
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep the motor off — and your ignition as well. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Chivenor. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Chivenor
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, which prevents anyone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting EX31 4, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- Shifting the car just a few yards is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, so leave the car off.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't weaken it.
- Even a short way down Chivenor Cross is too far to drive it.
- By the road, don't try emptying it on your own.
The staff on duty at any Chivenor forecourt — the Murco among them — will usually lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump is not made to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue settles: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: one that got AdBlue in West Ashford overnight and hasn't been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of your tank, undrawn — but it will be the first thing through if your motor starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow passages and block filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is flushed out. Overnight, a car parked around Chivenor with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it is only in that tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers none of that, and that is a separate kind of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the Esso, and this issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's inside your tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Whether your car is in Braunton or the centre of Chivenor, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just in that tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to empty, anywhere your car has stopped around Devon.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Chivenor?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the filling station: someone picks up a container heading home and pours it in at home.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. Hurrying, outside Southmead School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Tamar Road. Else, after dark by Heanton Court, your vehicle is refilled by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
Hired motors, new cars, fleet cars, or the second car in a home with one of each: the least known cars see it most. Wherever you are in Chivenor or the remainder of Devon, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Chivenor, and the engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Your filter and lines have had it pulled through, and any running takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
You may see your engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Sports Ground or halfway across Chivenor. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Keep the vehicle off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M4, under 50 miles from Chivenor, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Hopping across Chivenor to the car park by RMB Church is one thing; heading for Exeter, under 50 miles away, is another, since every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to flush once your engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where your car has ended up. If it is noticed soon, long-term damage is very unusual.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Chivenor
The vehicle stays put, whether that's a street near St Augustine's, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt in Chivenor, and the van comes to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if the engine has been run, because those answers settle this work.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. What remains from AdBlue will not flush away unaided, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more with urea than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians arrive, provided the engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on fresh diesel. Then our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay by Barnstaple or a drive in Chivenor. Before leaving, we confirm it's running properly with fresh diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Chivenor and where it is
Chivenor is a small village in Devon, situated inland near the villages of Heanton Punchardon, Wrafton, and Velator. Chivenor has a relatively low elevation of around 8 metres and is located approximately 36.7 miles from Exeter. Chivenor is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing and a population of around 1666 residents. Chivenor is also within a significant distance from London, at around 175.5 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Chivenor and Devon
AdBlue jobs in Chivenor are passed to teams that serve the places near it — Heanton Punchardon, Wrafton plus Velator — and much of Devon further out, across EX postcodes. Ring and check instead of guessing when you are close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Chivenor is a rural village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
Chivenor: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since each jobs differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, since an open drive is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Rescue Helicopter Viewing Area.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, and if the engine ran: every Chivenor call opens by asking exactly those, before any figure, not afterwards. Those answers shrink a range right down to one figure.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In Chivenor and still alongside your car?
Then, do nothing — that is the best move there is. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether the engine ran are everything our engineers need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Devon, Chivenor too.