Crofton: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the motor. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system draws it in. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly cleaned where your car stands around Crofton. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Crofton
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, which stops someone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much volume? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and we can see.
- Give us a postcode starting BR6 8, or whatever street is closest, and our van reaches you straight — so ring from wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- Do not start your engine, even for a moment to move the car.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Even a short way up York Rise is too far to drive the car.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Crofton forecourt — the Texaco among them — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, your car stays exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. Stored in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust to clean the gases. Nothing inside a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Farnborough last night and hasn't been started since. The liquid waits at the base of the tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through if your engine starts, before any diesel at all.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What remains when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it is cleared out. A car left standing in Crofton with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second kind of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have an issue of thin fuel. No harm is done as long as it sits put, blended into the diesel — only once your motor runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain through the following fill, and AdBlue separates again from your diesel, and so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other mistake — in Ramsden or the centre of Crofton equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Greater London your car is sitting.
Crofton: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of motors put the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and after dark the two can look the same. Nobody means it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Holy Innocents Catholic Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Platinum Jubilee Close. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park by The Maxwell.
The least familiar vehicles see it the most — rentals, new ones, fleet ones, and the other vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types. Leave it switched off: that is the first step to an identical mistake, wherever in Crofton or the rest of Greater London you happen to be.
Crofton: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through the fuel filter and lines.
Perhaps coming back from Broxbourne Gardens, or midway across Crofton, the motor might run rough, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M25, under 3 miles from Crofton, the first junction is where to exit, and anywhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
A quick hop across Crofton to the car park by Crofton Roman villa is one matter; driving for London, under 15 miles away, is another, because each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where your car has come to a stop, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Spotted quickly, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Crofton?
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Crofton: a side street close to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers decide the work, so first we ask what went in, roughly the amount, and if the motor has turned over.
Then the tank is emptied where your car waits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is cleaned right through because residue won't flush away unaided. A test of the vehicle follows last, once clean diesel goes in and your filter is flushed or, if necessary, swapped. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers turn up, provided the engine has not run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the system with new diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking bay outside Orpington or a driveway in Crofton, that is where our technicians fire it up and you drive off. The test before our engineers go is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. Since the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Crofton, for a moment
Crofton is a suburban area in Greater London, situated approximately 13 miles from central London and near the towns of Orpington and Goddington. Crofton sits at an elevation of around 92 metres, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Crofton is part of the larger London urban area, with Broom Hill nearby. Crofton has a population of around 6565 people, making it a small but distinct community within the region.
Crofton and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs around Crofton go to teams that serve the towns near it — Orpington, Broom Hill plus Goddington — and much of Greater London further out, throughout BR postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere awkward to explain? Checking is better than guessing, so ring.
A van that comes to you suits Crofton, a residential suburb: you have no need to bring your vehicle to us, because we empty it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Crofton: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, so not one fixed price is fair. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind St John’s United Reformed Church, Orpington.
What went in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Crofton enquiry opens with precisely those, before any figure, not after. With those replies, the range narrows to one fixed figure.
You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Still next to your car in Crofton?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to leave it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it ran is all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest across Greater London, Crofton too.