Clifton: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage just starts once your pump begins pulling it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully purged where the car stands around Clifton. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Clifton: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Call just where you are. Say a WA7 4 postcode or the closest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Never do these:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to start your engine.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Cholmondeley Road.
- Emptying your tank on your own by the road is not one to try.
The attendants working at any Clifton forecourt — the Shell included — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, your car stays just as it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. From a dedicated tank it goes straight to your exhaust, treating what the engine emits. No part in a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Grange last night and never switched on stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns the key.
After it is sucked in, the damage comes in two forms. 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, so it keeps labouring on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning in Clifton leaves it worse. In your tank only, waiting costs nothing. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part damages them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Texaco, and the problem is thinned fuel. Damage just comes from driving on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside your tank, it causes none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot just be run through. Whether your car sits in Rocksavage or the centre of Clifton, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush matters for more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere in Cheshire the vehicle has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest bit of any fuel system to clear.
Clifton: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles rests right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is not the filling station: a driver buys a container driving home and tips it in at home.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Beechwood Primary School the refill is rushed. Near Cholmondele Road, someone pours a bottle in at home after work. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park by The Beechwood.
The least known vehicles see it most — hire cars, new ones, company ones, and the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels. Anywhere in Cheshire, Clifton included, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Clifton?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been sucked through the fuel filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Floodbrook Clough, or midway across Clifton, the motor might run lumpy, smoke, drop pace, light up the dash or stall. When safe, stop then turn everything off — with no turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M56, under a mile from Clifton, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading towards Chester, under 15 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Clifton to the car park by Rocksavage. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Lasting damage is very unusual when it's spotted soon.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Clifton: what it takes
A road by Beechwood West Community Centre, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever the vehicle has stopped in Clifton, our technicians come to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether your motor has been run, since those replies settle this work.
Next, draining your tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. A careful flush matters much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't clear away by itself. Fresh diesel goes in after your filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, if your motor hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Last, the fuel system is primed with new diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, by Frodsham or on a driveway around Clifton. We make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before we leave. As the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Clifton and where it is
Clifton is a suburban area in Cheshire, situated near the coast and approximately 11 miles from Chester. Clifton has a relatively low elevation of 16 metres and is characterised by detached housing. Clifton is part of a larger residential area that includes nearby places such as Beechwood and Heath.
Clifton and Cheshire: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs in Clifton are passed to vans that serve the towns around it — Beechwood, Heath plus Hallwood Park — and most of Cheshire beyond, across WA postcodes. Assuming won't help close to a county line or somewhere tricky to pin down; ring and ask.
A mobile service fits Clifton, a residential suburb: you have no need to take your car to us, since we drain it on the spot, on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Clifton?
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open drive is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
With that reason, each enquiry from Clifton begins with the identical trio — what got in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — ahead of a quote. Given them, a range shrinks to one firm number.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
In Clifton and still alongside your car?
In that case, do nothing — that's the most helpful step there is. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Clifton or anywhere in Cheshire.