AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Croftlands? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, leave the engine off and leave the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The harm begins once it is sucked through your lines — it won't burn, and it will not blend with diesel. In Croftlands, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Croftlands: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazard lights on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about what quantity, save the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call just where you are. Quote a LA12 9 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Never:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, so it's wasted.
- Even a short distance up The Coppice is too far to drive it.
- Draining the tank on your own by the road isn't one to try.
The attendants working at any Croftlands forecourt — the Esso among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. On your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Swarthmoor last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It does two kinds of damage from there. It eats at some metals found in fuel systems, working on whatever it touches till it's cleared completely. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and lodge in tiny channels. Pipes holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car parked around Croftlands. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. Then there is the water: it offers no protection to the components that need it most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger problem?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that is the main fault. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is inside the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It can't just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the next fill won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Croftlands or out in South Ulverston, does more harm than almost any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere across Cumbria the car sits.
Croftlands: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, occasionally behind a single flap — can look the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of layouts invite it. A bottle bought while driving home and tipped in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical story.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Ulverston. Close to Beechlands, a driver tips a container in at home in the evening. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside Old Farmhouse, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
Hired motors, new cars, company cars, or the spare vehicle in a home with one of each: the least familiar cars get it the most. Anywhere around Cumbria, Croftlands as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first response: keep it switched off.
Croftlands: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed via the filter and lines.
Perhaps coming back from Swarthmoor Hall Wood, or part way across Croftlands, your motor might go rough, smoke, lose power, light up the dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M6, under 15 miles from Croftlands, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Croftlands to the car park by Croftlands Community Centre is a very different job from a run towards Lancaster, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has ended up, and once the engine has been run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very unusual when it's caught quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Croftlands?
A street by Sir John Barrow Cottage, a drive, a layby or a filling station: wherever the car has come to rest in Croftlands, our engineers come to it. Three answers decide the work, and so before anything else our engineers ask which fluid was put in, roughly what quantity, plus whether the engine has run.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through because what remains will not flush out unaided. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, provided your engine hasn't run. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no problem, and it is quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
Lastly, the system is bled with new diesel. Whether it is a parking bay outside Ulverston or a driveway in Croftlands, that is where our engineers fire it up and you set off. Before we leave, our engineers confirm it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. As the job is done in full where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Croftlands, for a moment
Croftlands is a suburban area in Cumbria, situated near the coast and approximately 15 miles from Lancaster. Croftlands has a relatively low elevation of 37 metres and is close to nearby places such as Dragley Beck and Ulverston. Croftlands is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which is typical of many suburban areas in the region. Croftlands is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of around 223 miles.
Croftlands and Cumbria: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in Croftlands are passed to vans that cover the towns around it — Dragley Beck, Ulverston plus Three Bridges — and most of Cumbria further out, across LA postcodes. Assuming doesn't help close to a border or anywhere tricky to pin down; phone and check.
No moving is needed. In Croftlands, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: your vehicle is drained on the spot, be it on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Croftlands?
Since each jobs vary, a flat price would not be honest. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Air Cadets.
With that reason, each call from Croftlands opens by asking the same trio — what was put in, what quantity, if it ran — ahead of any figure. With those replies, a range shrinks to one firm figure.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Alongside the car in Croftlands, still?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to leave it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Croftlands or wherever within Cumbria, once you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran.