AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Coolinge? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your engine off then leave your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens until the motor pulls it round. In Coolinge, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs normally comes down to 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 the diesel tank in Coolinge
To do:
- Take your keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about what volume? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our technicians will see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting CT20 3, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Many diesels power their pump the instant your ignition goes on, so keep it off.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short distance down Coolinge Lane.
- By the road, do not try emptying it on your own.
The staff on duty at any Coolinge filling station — the Esso among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it stands.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It doesn't blend. After it is poured into the tank, AdBlue acts nothing like fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Shorncliffe Camp overnight and has not turned since. The liquid sits at the base of your tank, untouched — though it will be the first thing through if the engine starts, before any diesel at all.
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, so it keeps working on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. Lines carrying AdBlue spell damage by morning for a car parked around Coolinge. Just inside that tank, it stays the same. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water part damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the BP. Blended into the diesel and left still, it's harmless for now; using your motor does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain after the next tankful, and AdBlue separates again out of your diesel, so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush matters more, and turning the key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Folkestone or the centre of Coolinge alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Kent the vehicle is sitting.
Coolinge: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it's not the forecourt: someone buys a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Sandgate Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. Near Baldric Road, a driver pours a bottle in on the drive after work. Or your car is topped up in the car park at The Nailbox, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
The least known vehicles see it most — hire cars, new ones, company ones, and the spare car of a home with one of each fuels. Leave it off: that is the first step to an identical slip, anywhere in Coolinge or the rest of Kent you are.
Coolinge: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It has been drawn through the filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
You may see your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Sandgate Community Garden or halfway across Coolinge. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Exit the M20, under a mile from Coolinge, at the first junction and park safely, not driving on.
A quick hop across Coolinge to the car park by Other People's Photographs Eversley Way is one thing; driving for Canterbury, under 15 miles away, is something else, because each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been started. If it's spotted early, long-term damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Coolinge?
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a street beside Other People's Photographs Welson Road, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station around Coolinge, and our van comes to it. Three answers shape the work, and so before anything else our engineers ask which fluid got in, roughly the amount, plus whether your engine has turned over.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. What remains from AdBlue won't flush away unaided, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters far more here than for petrol. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Engine not run? Then count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes at the end. Then our technicians fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Folkestone West or a drive around Coolinge. Our technicians check it runs correctly on new diesel before we leave. Our engineers do it all wherever the vehicle 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 want.
About Coolinge itself
Coolinge is a suburban area located on the coast of Kent, situated near the towns of Folkestone and Hythe. Coolinge sits at an elevation of 54 metres, overlooking the English Channel, and is close to the nearby places of Morehall, Sandgate, and Cheriton. Coolinge is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the typical residential architecture of the South East region. Coolinge is also within commuting distance to Canterbury, the nearest city, which is 14.1 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Coolinge included
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Coolinge also cover the locations about it, Morehall, Sandgate and Cheriton among them, and most of Kent beyond, across the CT postcode area. Close to a boundary, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
Coolinge is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Coolinge: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Other People's Photographs Baldric Road.
Before a quote, never after, every enquiry from Coolinge begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. Those replies shrink the range down to one figure.
The quote is quoted on the call, before anyone leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
In Coolinge and still next to your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Coolinge or anywhere within Kent.