AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Clipstone, and What to Do Next
One thing matters above all when AdBlue is in a diesel tank, and it is if your engine has run since. Out in Gorsethorpe or here in Clipstone, an unrun motor should stay unrun. Ring 0333 366 0103 with the ignition and engine still off. Across Clipstone, such a case is typically emptied and cleaned on the spot. Already run? Pull over when safe, then turn everything off. Stage one stays the same, even though the work grows.
Find the scenario below that matches yours, wherever across Nottinghamshire it happened.
Clipstone forecourt: AdBlue in a diesel at the pump
Picture it: standing by the pump, holding the bottle, you realise the cap you took off was not the correct one. Maybe you're at the BP, maybe at the Asda, possibly somewhere else in Clipstone.
The point: of every spot to find out, the forecourt is the best. Nothing has pulled it through, and so the AdBlue sits only in the tank.
Do this: stay out of the car, even if the pump needs clearing. Ring us from the forecourt after your car is in a bay — the staff will lend a hand to push it — then keep the receipt. Draining it right at the pump is possible when it can't be moved, since the equipment is explosion-proof.
At home in Clipstone with AdBlue in the diesel tank
For days the dashboard had been warning you. Only by the recycling, the empty container in hand, did you glance back at the cap you'd opened at the drive. Driveways close to Fifth Avenue see it as much as any other street.
Meaning? Provided the vehicle hasn't been driven since, it's second to the forecourt case. As it is unable to mix, AdBlue drops low inside the tank and stays. One night standing alters nothing.
Next: the keys indoors, so no one drives your vehicle anywhere first thing. Then, phone. Your driveway is where it gets drained, whether around Clipstone or Newlands. Night-time empties outside a house are no problem: the pumps are low-noise.
On the road in Clipstone with AdBlue in a diesel
You filled up, set off, and a mile or two later your motor began to run roughly, smoke, lose power or light up the dashboard. Maybe driving for Nottingham, under 15 miles away, or just along Mansfield Road.
Put simply: the AdBlue has been sucked into your fuel system. Distance sets how deep it goes: filter and lines to begin with, then the high-pressure pump and each injector. Each restart, like each mile, carries it on.
What to do: pull over where it is safe then switch off. Exit by the first junction — not the services further along — if you're on the M1, under 10 miles from Clipstone. Don't restart the vehicle to see if it has cleared; it will not have. Tell us hear the mileage driven when you call.
AdBlue in the wrong tank of a hire, lease or company car
Seven days back, it was unknown to you. Your own car either has no AdBlue or keeps it elsewhere, so no one warned you the AdBlue cap sits just beside your diesel. Wherever you happen to be around Nottinghamshire, every driver could slip up.
In short: an extra stage on top of the situations above, which depend on whether it's run. Work on your vehicle often needs the owner's approval under rental or company terms.
Next: phone the rental company or the fleet manager first, then us — settling it before our arrival is quicker. If you're stuck in the car park at Mansfield Woodhouse, or by Cenotaph, while you wait for an answer, leave your car off.
Unsure about AdBlue in the diesel tank in Clipstone?
"I think so" is sometimes the most honest as it gets. The bottle is lighter than it should be, there's a faint smell of ammonia round your filler, and you can't remember which cap you took off. Possibly it happened in a hurry at the school gates at Samuel Barlow Primary Academy, or on a friend's drive in Ravensdale.
The point: your motor is not hurt by a little AdBlue splashed around the filler. AdBlue inside your diesel tank does. If there is AdBlue in that tank, starting your car will draw it in, and it wouldn't tell you which either.
Your move: behave as though it got in, and don't start your motor. Describe what you noticed on your phone. A clean tank looked at counts as a better result than an already-run one drained.
Each AdBlue drain around Clipstone shares these stages
Each case gets the same start to the job. Three things come once we reach your car — on a filling station, a driveway, a street beside Clipstone Village Hall or the car park at The White Gate: the fluid, the quantity, and whether it has run. The price is given on the call, before a van leaves, and those replies set the work.
Then the tank is cleared and the fuel system purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol: AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't rinse out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there.
Finally, we fire it up. We make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel before we leave. Permanent damage is very unusual when it is spotted early, and the entire job is done where the car is. Nothing is paid upfront, payment is made on the day, and you receive what your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Clipstone and where it is
Clipstone is a village in Nottinghamshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with a population of around 2148 people. Clipstone sits inland at an elevation of 102 metres, approximately 14 miles north of Nottingham and 121 miles north of London. Clipstone is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is near to other local places such as Newlands, Kings Clipstone, and Forest Town. Clipstone remains a residential community with a mix of local amenities and rural surroundings.
AdBlue drains across Nottinghamshire, Clipstone included
Clipstone is a rural village, and the same teams that cover it work the towns near it too, Kings Clipstone and Forest Town among them, across the NG postcode area. The whereabouts comes quickest from a postcode that starts NG21 9.
No towing is required, whether stopped in the centre of Clipstone or on a layby heading to Flixter Breck, so leave it where it is. Our van drains it where it stands. Tricky to explain? By All Saints Church or a border? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
In one line: your situation
Engine never started: ring, leaving it switched off. Started by now? Pull over, turn off, ring. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest whichever it is, across Clipstone and Nottinghamshire, on 0333 366 0103.