Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Clutton
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does your engine. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only starts once your pump starts drawing it. Caught before the engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Clutton. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Clutton: the first few minutes
To do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, take the keys out.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about what quantity, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting BS39 5, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Moving your car just a short way is no reason to start your motor.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the moment the ignition goes on, so leave the vehicle off.
- Adding more diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Even a short distance up Lower Bristol Road is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No draining it yourself, either, at the verge.
The staff on duty at any Clutton filling station — the Texaco among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. On the drive, the vehicle stays just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
It does not combine. Once it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue settles: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath your diesel, which is how a car filled in Clutton Hill yesterday and not switched on remains the simple case, provided no one touches the key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, attacking any part it touches until it's cleared from the system. And when the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and lodge in narrow passages. A motor left sitting in Clutton with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. And there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
A fault of thinned fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol at the Murco. Harm only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left in the tank, it causes nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Since it does not burn, running it through is not an option. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Cross Ways or the middle of Clutton.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has stopped around Somerset.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Clutton
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, now and then under a single flap — can look the same. No one means it; many designs invite it. Mostly it is never the forecourt: a driver buys a container driving home and tips it in outside the house.
Usually, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside Clutton Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the vehicle. A driver tips the container in at home, just off Station Road, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap tops up the vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park by The Railway Inn.
It comes up the most in a rental, a new car, a fleet motor, or the spare motor in a home with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers know least. Keep it off: that is the first response to the same mistake, anywhere around Clutton or the remainder of Somerset you happen to be.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Clutton?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. With any running time, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed through your filter and pipework.
Maybe coming back from Clutton Football Club, or part way across Clutton, the motor might go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the M32, under 10 miles from Clutton, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Clutton to the car park by Clutton Social Club is a very different job from a run towards Bath, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where your car has ended up, and once the engine has run there is more of it. When it's noticed quickly, permanent damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Clutton?
Anywhere it has stopped in Clutton — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street beside St Augustine of Hippo — the van comes to your vehicle. The work rests on three answers, and we get before all else — what got in, the amount, and whether your engine has run.
Then the tank is drained where the vehicle sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since residue won't wash away on its own. After that, your filter: cleaned, or changed when it must be. After that fresh diesel, and then a check of your car. Not run? Then expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding your system with clean diesel comes at the end. At that point we start it and you set off, whether from a parking bay at Keynsham or a drive in Clutton. Our technicians confirm it runs correctly on clean diesel before we go. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Clutton and where it is
Clutton is a rural village in Somerset, situated inland at an elevation of around 126 metres, approximately 8.6 miles from the city of Bath. Clutton has a population of around 936 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Clutton is located near other small settlements such as Cholwell, Breach, and Temple Cloud, and is about 104.7 miles west of London.
Clutton and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the BS postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs around Clutton reach most of Somerset too, Cholwell, Breach and Temple Cloud among them. Assuming won't help by a border or anywhere hard to describe; phone and check.
A van that comes to you suits Clutton, a rural village: you have no need to bring your vehicle to us, since we empty it on the spot, on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Clutton: the cost of fixing it
Because the callouts vary, a single figure would not be honest. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, since an open drive is simpler for a technician to get to safely than a tight spot behind Temple Cloud Village Hall.
For that reason, each enquiry from Clutton begins with the same trio — which fluid was put in, how much, whether it ran — ahead of a quote. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, it is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Check your insurance while we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Clutton and still next to the vehicle?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your car is to leave it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Clutton or anywhere across Somerset.