AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Common End? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. The trouble starts once it is sucked through your pump — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. In Common End, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Common End
To do:
- Remove the keys, which prevents anyone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and about what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting WF9 2, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Turning the key to ignition alone sets your pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't thin it.
- Even a short stretch down Sunny Avenue is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the roadside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you move the car off the pumps if you are on a forecourt around Common End, whether it is the JET or elsewhere. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
It does not blend. Once it is tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits underneath the diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Moorthorpe last night and never started remains the straightforward case, as long as no one touches your key.
From there it does two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean harm by morning for a car sitting around Common End. Just inside your tank, it stays stable. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water gives none of that, and that is a second form of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is in the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether the car sits in Minsthorpe or the heart of Common End, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
As with petrol, there is good news. Emptying a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue stays in it — wherever in West Yorkshire your vehicle sits.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Common End?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container picked up when driving home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the usual story.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside South Elmsall Carlton Junior and Infant School the refill is rushed. Near Park Terrace, someone pours a bottle in on that drive in the evening. Or someone new to that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park outside South Elmsall Village Club.
It comes up the most in a rental, a new vehicle, a company motor, or the other car of a home with both fuels — the cars drivers know least. Wherever around West Yorkshire, Common End included, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
Common End: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, after passing through the filter and lines.
You may see your motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Frickley Coliery Welfare Cricket Club or halfway across Common End. When safe, pull over and switch it off — with no turning it on again to see. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the A1(M), under 3 miles from Common End, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That's why a hop across Common End to park near St Mary the Virgin and a drive of under 10 miles for Doncaster are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the car has stopped, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it is spotted early.
Common End: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped in Common End — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street by Westfield Centre — our van comes to the car. Three replies decide the work, and so before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly what quantity, and if your motor has run.
Then the tank is emptied where the vehicle waits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians arrive, provided the motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to bleed your system on fresh diesel. You set off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Common End or in a bay by South Elmsall. It's checked on fresh diesel to confirm it runs properly before our engineers leave. No workshop is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Common End itself
Common End is a suburban area located on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Common End sits at an elevation of 31 metres, close to the nearby towns of South Elmsall and Doncaster. Common End is part of a larger urban area, with nearby neighbourhoods including Priory Estate and Elm Estate. Common End has a population of approximately 4277 residents.
AdBlue drains across Common End and West Yorkshire
South Elmsall, Priory Estate and Elm Estate are among the towns near Common End that the same teams reach, together with most of West Yorkshire further out, over the WF postcode area. Phone and ask instead of guessing when you're close to a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
A mobile service fits Common End, a residential suburb: you have no need to bring your vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it there, on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Common End?
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Frickley AFC.
That's why every call from Common End starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it's run. With those replies, a range narrows to one firm number.
You hear that price by phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Still beside the vehicle in Common End?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the most useful move you can do. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Common End or anywhere in West Yorkshire.