AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Crondall? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your motor off then keep your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the fuel system draws it in. In Crondall, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Crondall: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Pull the keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly how much quantity? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and we can know.
- Tell us a postcode starting GU10 5, or whichever street is closest, and the van reaches you straight — so ring from wherever you are.
Not to do:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Switching the key to ignition alone starts the pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel won't weaken it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch down Pankridge Street.
- Emptying the tank yourself by the road is not worth trying.
At a forecourt around Crondall, whether it's the BP or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive, leave the car just where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, which is why a car filled in Warren Corner last night and never switched on stays the straightforward case, provided nobody turns the key.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. It eats at certain metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it reaches until it's cleared from your system. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in tiny channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean harm overnight for a car sitting around Crondall. Just in that tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel flowing through them, so the water content harms them by itself.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more significant than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Shell, and this problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is inside the tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. It cannot just be run through, because it does not burn. Deposits and corrosion remain after the next fill, and AdBlue separates back out of the diesel, so watering it can't help. That is why the flush counts more, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm here than nearly any other mistake — in Doras Green or the heart of Crondall alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever across Hampshire your vehicle has stopped, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of any fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Crondall: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. A bottle picked up while driving home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the usual 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 Crondall Primary School. Someone tips the bottle in at home, just off The Borough, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside Plume of Feathers, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that's the first response to the same slip, anywhere around Crondall or the rest of Hampshire you happen to be.
Crondall: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each may appear, maybe midway across Crondall or coming back from Hook Meadow. When safe, stop then turn it off — without turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M3, under 5 miles from Crondall, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That's why crossing Crondall to park near Crondall Baptist Church and a drive of under 25 miles for Winchester are very different jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once your engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where your car has stopped. Permanent damage is very uncommon when it is spotted quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Crondall?
Anywhere it has come to rest in Crondall — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a road by Crondall Village Hall — the van comes to the vehicle. The job rests on three answers, and our technicians ask for before all else — what was put in, the amount, and whether the motor has turned over.
Right there, your tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. The fuel system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we arrive, provided the engine has not run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live filling station is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. After that we fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay by Farnham or a driveway in Crondall. It is checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs properly before we head off. We do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Crondall and where it is
Crondall is a village situated in the north east of Hampshire, on the banks of the River Hart at an elevation of around 88 metres. Crondall has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near to smaller areas such as Bowling Alley and Redlands. Crondall is close to the city of Winchester, which is approximately 22.8 miles away, and is also within commuting distance of London, at around 36.9 miles away. Crondall has a population of around 1473 people, living in a variety of homes along streets such as Mill Lane.
AdBlue drains across Crondall and Hampshire
AdBlue jobs in Crondall are passed to vans that serve the towns near it — Bowling Alley, Redlands as well as Mill Lane — and most of Hampshire further out, across GU postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
Crondall is a village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Crondall?
Each job differs, so not one single price would be honest. What changes the price is, first, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind All Saints Church.
Before a quote, not afterwards, every enquiry from Crondall opens with the same three checks: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether the engine ran. Those replies narrow a range right down to a single figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the quote on the phone. Then payment is on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Check your policy whilst we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still next to the vehicle in Crondall?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Crondall or wherever in Hampshire, once you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.