Cranage: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off then keep the ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only comes once the pump begins drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Cranage, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the engine has run. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Cranage, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, take your keys away.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Which product, and about how much quantity? Save the bottle or the receipt, and our technicians can know.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a CW4 8 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Do not do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment the ignition comes on, so keep it off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short distance up Byley Lane.
- Draining the tank yourself beside the road is not one to try.
On a forecourt around Cranage, whether it is the Texaco or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle clear of the pump. If you're on your own drive, leave it exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, and there it treats the fumes. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
It does not blend. After it's poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the same spot the intake draws from. A car filled on a drive in Puddinglake overnight and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine runs, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. What remains once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and block filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's cleared out. Lines holding AdBlue mean harm overnight for a car sitting in Cranage. Just in your tank, it stays stable. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger fault?
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Shell. Mixed into your diesel and left still, it's no threat at that stage; running the engine is the harm.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable substance. Since it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the next fill won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more here, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Cranage or out in Allostock, costs more than nearly any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Cheshire the vehicle is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Cranage?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container bought while heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the filling station, is the typical story.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Holmes Chapel Primary School. After work, a container goes in on a drive near Knutsford Road. Another pattern: darkness, the car park outside the pub in the village, and someone using that flap for the first time.
The least known cars get it the most — hire cars, brand-new cars, fleet cars, and the other vehicle of a family with one of each fuels. Wherever around Cheshire, Cranage as well, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first step: keep it off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Cranage?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Your filter and lines have had it pulled along, and any running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Perhaps coming back from Cranage Football Pitches, or part way across Cranage, the engine might run rough, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or stall. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M6, under a mile from Cranage, by the first junction and stop safely, not driving on.
Distance counts: every mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, and so heading for Stoke-on-Trent, under 25 miles away, makes a far larger job than crossing Cranage to the car park by Cranage Village Hall. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Noticed soon, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
Cranage: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Anywhere it has stopped in Cranage — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a road by Holmes Chapel Methodist — the van comes to the vehicle. What got in, roughly the quantity, and whether your engine has been run: our technicians ask before all else, because those shape the work.
Then your tank is emptied where your car waits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is cleaned right through because residue won't wash away unaided. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians turn up, if your motor has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on new diesel. You drive off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Cranage or in a space at Holmes Chapel. The test before we head off is that it runs properly on new diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Cranage
Cranage is a village in Cheshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 60 metres. Cranage lies near the towns of Holmes Chapel and Rudheath, and is close to the rural areas of Sproston Green and Rudheath Woods. Cranage has a population of approximately 1010 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Cranage is located 15.7 miles from Stoke-on-Trent and 151.3 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cranage and Cheshire
Over the CW postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs in Cranage serve most of Cheshire as well, Holmes Chapel, Rudheath Woods and Sproston Green among them. Phone and check rather than guess when you're close to a border, or somewhere tricky to explain.
Cranage is a village, 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.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Cranage: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. What moves the cost is, firstly, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind St. Luke's Parish Church.
That is why every call from Cranage starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. Given them, a range narrows to a single firm number.
The quote is given during the call, before a van leaves; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still next to your car in Cranage?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether it ran is everything we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest throughout Cheshire, Cranage too.