AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Cold Ash Hill? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off and leave your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing starts until your engine sucks it round. In Cold Ash Hill, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Cold Ash Hill: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- Take your keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, and so don't throw it out.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting GU30 7, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Shifting your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the moment your ignition comes on, and so leave the vehicle off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up Liphook and Petersfield Bypass.
- By the road, do not try emptying it yourself.
Rolling the car away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Cold Ash Hill forecourt you're on, the Sainsbury's or any other. At home, the car remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, and there it treats the fumes. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — quite unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the same place the intake sucks from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Griggs Green overnight and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but when the motor turns, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
Once it's pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and tiny channels; and, because it eats at some metals, each part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it remains inside. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning around Cold Ash Hill makes it worse. Inside that tank only, waiting does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes the fuel thin — that's the main problem. Blended into your diesel and sitting unused, it is harmless at that stage; running the motor does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates again — and the next fill won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Cold Ash Hill or out in Conford, costs more than almost any other error.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere around Hampshire your car has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of any fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Cold Ash Hill: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap — can look the same. No one intends it; many designs allow it. It mostly happens outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Liphook Infant School. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive near Portsmouth Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Green Dragon, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
Rented vehicles, brand-new motors, fleet cars, or the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles get it most. An identical mistake, an identical first response — leave it off — wherever you happen to be around Cold Ash Hill or the rest of Hampshire.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cold Ash Hill?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. With any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing via the filter and lines.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Radford Park or halfway across Cold Ash Hill. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the Waterlooville Bypass, under 15 miles from Cold Ash Hill, at the first junction and stop safely, rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Cold Ash Hill to the car park by Bramshott Church is a very different job from a run towards Chichester, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Very seldom does it leave lasting damage if it is noticed early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Cold Ash Hill
A street beside Immaculate Conception, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your vehicle has stopped in Cold Ash Hill, we come to it. Three answers decide the work, and so first our technicians ask what got in, roughly what quantity, plus if the engine has run.
Right there, that tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. Your system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. Not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no issue, and it is hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
Priming the fuel system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, at Liphook or on a drive in Cold Ash Hill. Our technicians confirm it runs correctly on new diesel before we leave. No garage is required at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Cold Ash Hill
Cold Ash Hill is a locality in Hampshire, situated near the riverside and surrounded by nearby places such as Bramshott, Liphook, and Newtown. Cold Ash Hill has a population of around 915 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Cold Ash Hill sits at an elevation of 109 metres, approximately 17 miles from Chichester and 41 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cold Ash Hill and Hampshire
Bramshott, Liphook and Newtown are among the towns near Cold Ash Hill that the same teams serve, together with much of Hampshire beyond, over the GU postcode area. Ring and check rather than guess when you are close to a county line, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
Wherever your car sits — your driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a filling station — we empty it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits Cold Ash Hill, a small village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Cold Ash Hill: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open driveway is easier for our van to reach safely than a tight spot behind Liphook Library.
What was put in, what quantity, plus if the engine ran: each Cold Ash Hill call opens with precisely those, ahead of a quote, never after. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Cold Ash Hill and still next to the car?
Then, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether it ran are all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest throughout Hampshire, Cold Ash Hill included.