AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Cold Norton? Don't Start It
Engine off, ignition off: that is how you start if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing starts until the motor pulls it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Cold Norton, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your engine has run. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Cold Norton: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- If you're anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and roughly what quantity, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Our van locates you fastest with a postcode starting CM3 6, or simply the name of a street close by, so phone from the spot.
Things not to do:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way up St Stephens Road.
- Beside the road, don't attempt draining it yourself.
Rolling your car away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Cold Norton forecourt you're on, the Texaco included. At home, the car remains exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the engine. From a dedicated reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a driveway in Howegreen yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine turns, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What is left when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it is cleared out. Lines holding AdBlue mean damage by morning for a car parked in Cold Norton. Just in your tank, it stays stable. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate form of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Petrol put into a diesel on Asda's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that's the whole fault. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in your tank, it causes nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue splits back from your diesel, and so watering it won't work. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm here than nearly any other slip — in Roundbush or the centre of Cold Norton equally.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits just in the tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to empty, wherever the vehicle has come to rest across Essex.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Cold Norton
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars sits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle picked up while driving home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the typical story.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Cold Norton Primary School the refill is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Latchingdon Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Norton, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the other vehicle of a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. Keep it switched off: that is the first response to the same slip, wherever around Cold Norton or the rest of Essex you are.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Cold Norton?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. It has been pulled through your filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Maybe coming back from Primrose Wood, or midway across Cold Norton, your engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or stall. No starting it again to test: stop once it is safe, then switch it off. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M25, under 25 miles from Cold Norton, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Hopping across Cold Norton to the car park by St Stephens, Cold Norton is one matter; driving for Southend-on-Sea, under 10 miles away, is something else, since each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has stopped, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Caught quickly, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Cold Norton
Anywhere it has come to rest around Cold Norton — a filling station, a layby, a driveway, a street beside Purleigh Mount — the van comes to your car. Three answers decide the job, so before anything else our engineers ask which fluid was put in, roughly what quantity, and whether your motor has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together after the tank is emptied, on the spot. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since residue will not wash out unaided. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. Then fresh diesel, then a check of the vehicle. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes at the end. You drive off as soon as our engineers have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway around Cold Norton or in a space at North Fambridge. The check before our engineers go is that it runs properly on new diesel. We do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never has to go to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Cold Norton itself
Cold Norton is a village in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of 46 metres, and is located approximately 36 miles from London. Cold Norton has a population of around 1161 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Cold Norton is close to the nearby cities of Southend-on-Sea and Chelmsford, and is near other small settlements such as Farther Howegreen and Great Canney. Cold Norton sits within a wider landscape of rolling countryside and arable farmland.
AdBlue drains around Cold Norton and across Essex
Throughout the CM postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs in Cold Norton serve much of Essex as well, Farther Howegreen, Great Canney and Stow Maries among them. Close to a border, or somewhere awkward to explain? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Anywhere the vehicle sits — a driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Cold Norton, a rural village, well.
Cold Norton: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Each job differs, and so not one single quote is honest. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the car, because an open driveway is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight space behind AA SEARCHLIGHT: S0013633.
For that in mind, each call from Cold Norton opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid was put in, how much, whether the engine ran — ahead of any quote. Their answers narrow a range down to a single figure.
Before a van sets off, you are told the price by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. As the van is on the way, check your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Beside your car in Cold Norton, still?
Not touching your car is, then, the best move open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Cold Norton or anywhere across Essex.