Cirencester: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and your ignition too. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm starts until your motor pulls it round. Caught before your engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Cirencester. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cirencester: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting GL7 2, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Shifting your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to start the motor.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant your ignition comes on, and so leave it off.
- Adding more diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short distance along Castle Street.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself at the kerbside.
Rolling the car away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Cirencester forecourt you are on, the Texaco included. At home, your car stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. From a dedicated tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays separate instead of blending — quite unlike fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in The Beeches last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of your tank, untouched — but it will be first through if your motor runs, before any diesel at all.
Once it is sucked in, the harm comes in two forms. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's flushed out. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning in Cirencester makes things worse. Inside that tank only, waiting does nothing. And there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that rely on it most — the injection pump and every injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a fault of thin fuel. No damage is done while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only once the engine runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Whether the vehicle is in New Mills or the heart of Cirencester, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just in the tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, anywhere the car has stopped in Gloucestershire.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Cirencester?
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap — can appear the same. Nobody means it; plenty of designs invite it. A container bought when driving home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. The top-up gets hurried outside Powell's Church of England Primary School, because the dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped off. Close to Market Place, someone pours a container in at home after work. Or a driver new to that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park by The Crown.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new car, a company vehicle, or the spare car of a home with both fuel types — the cars people know the least. Leave it switched off: that's the first step to the same slip, wherever around Cirencester or the remainder of Gloucestershire you are.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Cirencester?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Through your filter, through the lines, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Abbey Grounds or halfway across Cirencester. No starting it again to test: stop when safe, then switch everything off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M4, under 15 miles from Cirencester, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Cirencester to the car park by Pink Lady dancing with big brown Dog is one thing; driving towards Gloucester, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has stopped, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. If it's caught soon, lasting damage is very unusual.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Cirencester
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Cirencester: a side street near Cirencester War Memorial, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies shape the work, and so first we ask which fluid got in, about what quantity, and if the motor has turned over.
Then your tank is cleared where the car waits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is flushed right through since what remains won't wash out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Cirencester or in a space at Kemble. Before we leave, we confirm it's running smoothly with new diesel in. Since the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Cirencester
Cirencester is a charming market town situated in a picturesque riverside setting in Gloucestershire, England. It is nestled in the Cotswold District and boasts a rich history, with the River Churn flowing through it. The town is renowned for being home to a prestigious agricultural university and is located near several major cities, including Swindon and Gloucester. Cirencester's scenic location and historic significance make it a notable town in the region.
Cirencester and Gloucestershire: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the GL postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs in Cirencester serve most of Gloucestershire too, Bowling Green, Watermoor and Chesterton among them. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No towing is needed. In Cirencester, a riverside town, a mobile service fits: the vehicle is drained where it stands, whether on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Cirencester
Not one single price would be honest, because every job differs. Three things move the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where your car is. That last one rests on whether our van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Cirencester Markets.
That's why each call from Cirencester starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. With those replies, a range narrows to one firm figure.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. While our engineer is on the way, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Alongside the vehicle around Cirencester, still?
Not touching the car is, then, the best thing you can do. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Cirencester or anywhere within Gloucestershire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran.