AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Coley? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens until the engine pulls it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Coley, is normally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your motor has run. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Coley: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Remove the keys, which prevents anyone turning the electrics on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly how much, save the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting RG1 6, or whatever street is nearest, and our van reaches you straight — so ring wherever you stand.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the car: the engine stays off.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not weaken it.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Garnet Street.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
Rolling the vehicle off the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Coley forecourt you are on, the Esso included. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a dedicated tank it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
It doesn't combine. Once it is tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the same place the pickup sucks from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Lower Caversham last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Two kinds of damage come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filters and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it eats at some metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it stays inside. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car sitting around Coley. Just in the tank, it stays the same. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water gives none of that, and that is a second kind of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
A problem of thinned fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the BP. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is inside your tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Whether the vehicle is in New Town or the heart of Coley, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other mistake, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only in your tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to empty, wherever the vehicle has stopped around Berkshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Coley: how it ends up there
It's not deliberate. Many cars keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Usually it is not the filling station: someone picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Coley Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a drive near Dover Street. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Castle Tap, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a company car, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each fuels — the cars drivers use least. An identical mistake, an identical first response — keep it off — wherever you happen to be around Coley or the remainder of Berkshire.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Coley?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. It has been sucked through the filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or stalling: any might appear, maybe part way across Coley or coming back from Holy Brook Nook. No restarting to check: stop once safe, then switch everything off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M4, under 3 miles from Coley, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so heading for Oxford, under 25 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Coley to the car park by CIRDIC. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once your engine has been run. Permanent damage is very unusual when it is noticed early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Coley
A street by The Salvation Army, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere the vehicle has come to rest around Coley, we travel to it. The work depends on three replies, and our technicians get first — which fluid got in, the quantity, and if your engine has turned over.
Then the tank is cleared where your car waits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is flushed all the way through because residue won't wash away unaided. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed when it must be. After that fresh diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on fresh diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where your car is parked, at Reading West or on a driveway around Coley. The check before our engineers go is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. We do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a workshop. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Coley
Coley is a suburban area in Berkshire, situated on the banks of the River Thames at an elevation of 39 metres. Coley is located near the town of Reading and is close to other nearby places such as The Mount and Caversham. Coley has a population of approximately 12146 people and is characterised by a predominance of flat housing. Coley is also within commuting distance of London, being around 36.8 miles away, and is roughly 24.1 miles from the city of Oxford.
AdBlue drains across Coley and Berkshire
AdBlue call-outs around Coley go to teams that serve the places around it — Reading, The Mount plus Caversham — and most of Berkshire beyond, throughout RG postcodes. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No towing is needed. In Coley, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: your car is drained on the spot, be it in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Coley?
There's no honest single price, because the jobs aren't the same. What changes the price is, first of all, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind The Reading Bridge Club.
Before any figure, not afterwards, each enquiry from Coley begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. With them, a range narrows to a single firm number.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
In Coley and still beside the vehicle?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Coley or wherever in Berkshire.