Coombe: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Being water-based, it will not ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only comes when your pump starts pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Coombe, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your engine has run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Coombe: the first few minutes
Do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much volume? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting KT3 4, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run the pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way down Golf Club Drive.
- Emptying the tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
On a forecourt around Coombe, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the car clear of the petrol pump. On your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a dedicated tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your motor lets out. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is how a car filled in New Malden yesterday and not switched on stays the straightforward case, as long as no one touches your key.
After it is pulled in, the harm takes two forms. It eats at some metals found in fuel systems, attacking whatever it touches until it's removed completely. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in tiny channels. Overnight, a vehicle parked around Coombe with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it is only in your tank, nothing changes. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is frequently worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the BP. Damage just comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the following tankful won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Coombe or out in Cottenham Park, costs more than nearly any other error.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Greater London your car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Coombe
It is not on purpose. Many vehicles have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, now and then under a single flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Coombe Hill Infant School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up your car. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Coombe Lane West. Else, in dim light outside The Royal Oak, your vehicle is refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
Hired vehicles, new cars, company motors, or the spare car in a home with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Wherever you're around Coombe or the rest of Greater London, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Coombe, and your engine started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. Given any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and every injector, after passing via the fuel filter and lines.
Perhaps coming back from Coombe House Conservation Area, or midway across Coombe, your engine may run rough, smoke, lose power, light up your dash or cut out. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off rather than testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M4, under 10 miles from Coombe, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. That's why a hop across Coombe to park near Nelly Melba and a drive of under 10 miles towards Westminster are such separate jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where your car has stopped, and once your engine has run there is more of it. Long-term damage is very uncommon if it's spotted soon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Coombe
Anywhere it has come to rest around Coombe — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside Coombe Conduit — our van comes to the vehicle. The job depends on three answers, which our engineers get first — what got in, the quantity, and if your engine has run.
Next, draining your tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since residue won't clear out by itself. Next, the filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, then a test of the car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians get there, provided the motor hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. You head off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway in Coombe or in a space outside New Malden. The test before our engineers leave is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Coombe itself
Coombe is a suburban area in southwest London, situated approximately 8.5 miles from central London. Coombe sits at an elevation of around 45 metres, near the neighbouring areas of Copse Hill, Kingston Vale, and Kingston Hill. Coombe is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, which reflects the area's residential nature. Coombe has a population of around 2670 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Coombe and Greater London
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs in Coombe also cover the places round it, Copse Hill, Kingston Vale and Kingston Hill among them, and most of Greater London beyond, across the KT postcode area. Guessing won't help close to a border or somewhere hard to describe; phone and check.
No towing is needed. In Coombe, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: your vehicle is drained where it stands, whether on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Coombe: the cost of fixing it
There is no honest single price, since the jobs aren't the same. What shifts 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 reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Wimbledon Rugby Football Club.
For that reason, every enquiry from Coombe opens with the same trio — what was put in, how much, whether the engine ran — before a figure. Those replies shrink the range down to a single number.
Before anyone sets off, you hear our price by phone. Then you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, check your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
In Coombe and still alongside the vehicle?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Coombe or anywhere around Greater London.