Cott: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts once the pump begins pulling it. In Cott, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Cott
Things to do:
- Remove the keys, and that stops anyone switching the electrics on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting TQ9 6, or whichever street is closest, and our van reaches you directly — so ring wherever you are.
Don't:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Cott Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you move your car off the island if you are on a forecourt in Cott, whether it is the Texaco or somewhere else. Parked on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust to clean the gases. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A car filled on a drive in Shinners Bridge overnight and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but when the engine turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
Once it's drawn in, the damage takes two forms. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a vehicle parked in Cott with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it's just in your tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a separate kind of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger problem?
A fault of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Morrisons. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside your tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It does not burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Swallowfields or the heart of Cott, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush counts more. Why: it will not remain mixed, and so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
As with petrol, there's good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits only in that tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere the car has stopped in Devon.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Cott
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it is not the filling station: someone picks up a container driving home and tips it in outside the house.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Dartington Church of England Academy the top-up is rushed. Close to Bramble Close, someone tips a container in on that drive in the evening. Else, after dark by The Cott Inn, the car is refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
The least known vehicles see it the most — hire cars, brand-new ones, fleet cars, and the spare vehicle in a home with one of each fuels. Keep it switched off: that's the first response to the same slip, anywhere in Cott or the remainder of Devon you happen to be.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Cott?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The fuel filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and some running carries it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Perhaps returning from Cricket / Sports Pitch, or part way across Cott, the engine may run lumpy, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or cut out. Once safe, stop and turn it off — with no turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M5, under 25 miles from Cott, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Cott to the car park by Dartington Cider Press is a very different job from a run towards Plymouth, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been started, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. Permanent damage is very rare when it is noticed soon.
Cott: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest around Cott — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside St Mary's Church — the van travels to your car. Before anything else we ask what got in, about how much, and whether your motor has been run, because those replies decide this work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when that tank is drained, right there. Residue from AdBlue will not wash out unaided, so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts far more here than for petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when the motor hasn't run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the final step. Starting the engine comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, at Totnes or on a driveway around Cott. Our technicians make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before leaving. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Cott itself
Cott is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Devon, with a relatively low elevation of 32 metres. Cott lies near several nearby places, including Dartington, Puddaven, and Longcause, and is approximately 19.8 miles from Plymouth. Cott has a population of around 924 residents, who mostly live in detached housing. Cott is also located a significant distance from London, at around 172.2 miles away.
Cott and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Cott also cover the locations around it, Dartington, Puddaven and Longcause among them, and most of Devon beyond, across the TQ postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
No towing is needed. In Cott, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: the car is emptied on the spot, be it in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Cott?
There is no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. Three things change the cost: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one turns on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Follaton Village Hall.
Which fluid got in, what quantity, plus if it ran: every Cott enquiry begins by asking exactly those, before a quote, not afterwards. Once those are answered, a range turns into a single fixed figure.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, it is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
In Cott and still alongside your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Cott or anywhere around Devon.