Covent Garden: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Motor off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Being water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; trouble just starts once your pump begins drawing it. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly purged where the car sits around Covent Garden. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps straight away, Covent Garden: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- So nobody can turn the ignition on, pull the keys away.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so do not throw it away.
- Tell us a postcode starting WC2E 8, or whichever street is nearest, and our van finds you directly — so call from wherever you are.
Do not do these:
- Moving your vehicle just a short way is no reason to start your engine.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it is pointless.
- Even a short distance up Russell Street is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it yourself.
At a forecourt in Covent Garden, whether it's the Texaco or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car away from the pump. At home, the car remains just where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
It doesn't combine. After it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. A car filled on a drive in Chinatown yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once the engine turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. What is left when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny passages and block filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. By daybreak, a vehicle parked in Covent Garden with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it is just inside your tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, and that is a second form of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that is the whole problem. No damage is done while it sits put, mixed into your diesel — only when the engine runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Charing Cross or the middle of Covent Garden.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in there — anywhere in Greater London the car has stopped.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Covent Garden?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the 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, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside St Clement Danes CofE Primary School. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a drive near James Street. Another pattern: darkness, a pub car park by Punch & Judy, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the other motor of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people know the least. Wherever in Greater London, Covent Garden as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Covent Garden?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The fuel filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Perhaps returning from Inigo Jones Garden, or part way across Covent Garden, the motor may go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or cut out. When you safely can, stop then turn it off — without turning it on again to test. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M1, under 10 miles from Covent Garden, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. That is why crossing Covent Garden to park near Royal Opera House and a drive of under a mile towards Westminster are such separate jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after your engine has been running. Spotted soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Covent Garden
Wherever it has come to rest in Covent Garden — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by Linbury Theatre — the van comes to your vehicle. The work depends on three answers, which our technicians get first — what got in, the amount, and if the motor has run.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since what remains will not flush out unaided. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when the motor hasn't run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes last. At that point we start the engine and you head off, whether from a parking space outside London Charing Cross or a driveway in Covent Garden. The check before our engineers head off is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. No garage is needed at any point, with the entire job done then and there. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a suburban area in central London, situated near the River Thames and close to the city's main attractions. Covent Garden sits at an elevation of 34 metres, with its proximity to Westminster and the Strand making it a popular residential location. Covent Garden is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing, which accommodates a population of around 7753 residents. Covent Garden is also surrounded by other notable areas, including St Giles and Aldwych.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Covent Garden included
AdBlue call-outs around Covent Garden are passed to teams that cover the places near it — Strand, St Giles plus Aldwych — and much of Greater London beyond, across WC2E postcodes. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Covent Garden is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Covent Garden?
Because the callouts vary, a single figure would not be fair. What shifts the cost is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Covent Garden Market.
What got in, what quantity, and whether the engine ran: every Covent Garden enquiry opens by asking exactly that, before a quote, never afterwards. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
Alongside the car around Covent Garden, still?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful step available. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Covent Garden or anywhere in Greater London.