Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Crosby
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off then keep the ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when your fuel system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Crosby, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has run. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Crosby: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Remove your keys, which prevents anyone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Which product, and about how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and we will see.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a DN15 7 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: your motor stays off.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Buckingham Street North.
- By the road, do not try draining it yourself.
The attendants on duty at any Crosby forecourt — the JET included — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the car precisely where it stands.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of that was meant to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Heavier than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the same spot the pickup draws from. When the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Dragonby last night and not started remains the straightforward one, provided no one touches your key.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. What is left when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it's flushed out. A car left sitting around Crosby with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a second kind of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger issue?
Petrol put into a diesel on Sainsbury's's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that's the whole fault. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, so it can't just be run through. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Old Brumby or the middle of Crosby.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the easiest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in it — wherever around Lincolnshire the vehicle has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Crosby: how it ends up there
It is not on purpose. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Usually it's not the filling station: someone buys a container heading home and tips it in outside the house.
Usually, it happens 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 Crosby Primary School. Near Ferry Road, a driver pours a bottle in at home after work. Another pattern: darkness, the car park outside Grosvenor, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same mistake, an identical first response — keep it off — anywhere you happen to be in Crosby or the remainder of Lincolnshire.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Crosby?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, having passed through your filter and pipework.
Perhaps returning from Sheffield Park, or part way across Crosby, the engine may run lumpy, smoke, lose power, flash the dash or stall. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off rather than testing it again. Every start pulls more of that through.
Leave the A1077(M), under 3 miles from Crosby, at the next junction and stop safely, not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Crosby to the car park by Guru Nanak Sikh Temple is a very different job from a run towards Kingston upon Hull, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the cleaning where the car has come to a stop, and once your engine has run there is more of it. Long-term damage is very uncommon if it's noticed quickly.
Crosby: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Anywhere it has stopped around Crosby — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a road beside St George's Church — the van comes to your car. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if the motor has run, since those replies decide this work.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is cleaned right through since residue will not flush out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. About half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where your motor has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, your system is primed with fresh diesel. Then our engineers fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking bay at Scunthorpe or a driveway around Crosby. It is checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs properly before our technicians go. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Crosby itself
Crosby is a suburban area in northern Lincolnshire, situated approximately 16 miles from Kingston upon Hull and 146 miles from London. Crosby sits at an elevation of around 48 metres, characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Crosby forms part of the wider residential area surrounding Scunthorpe and other nearby settlements like Berkeley and Frodingham.
AdBlue drains across Crosby and Lincolnshire
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls in Crosby also cover the places about it, Scunthorpe, Berkeley and Frodingham among them, and most of Lincolnshire beyond, across the DN postcode area. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
No towing is needed. In Crosby, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: the car is drained where it stands, be it on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Crosby?
There is no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open drive is easier for our van to reach safely than a tight space behind Crosby Angel.
Before any quote, never afterwards, every call from Crosby begins with the same three questions: the fuel, the amount, and whether the engine ran. When they are answered, a range turns into a single firm figure.
Before a van heads out, you hear our price by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Check your policy whilst we're on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Crosby and still beside the vehicle?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, right now, the best thing you can do. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Crosby or anywhere within Lincolnshire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.