Crownpits: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave the engine off and keep your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm begins once it's sucked through your lines — it won't burn, and it won't blend with diesel. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Crownpits. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Crownpits
Do these:
- So nobody can turn the ignition on, pull your keys out.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Ring right where you are. Say a GU7 1 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Don't do these:
- Moving your vehicle just a short way is no reason to start your engine.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up Brighton Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the verge.
Moving your vehicle off the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Crownpits forecourt you are on, the Sainsbury's included. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. It sinks, since it's heavier than diesel, and pools down where the pickup takes its supply from. A car topped up on a drive in Munstead Heath overnight and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but once your engine turns, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, attacking whatever it touches till it's removed completely. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. Lines carrying AdBlue mean harm by morning for a vehicle sitting in Crownpits. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on JET's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that is the main fault. Mixed into your diesel and left unused, it's harmless at that stage; using the motor does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts 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 Catteshall or the middle of Crownpits.
As with petrol, there's good news. Anywhere in Surrey the car has come to rest, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Crownpits: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. A bottle bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the usual story.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside St Edmund's Catholic Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. Someone pours the bottle in outside their house, right off Grosvenor Road, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at Volunteer, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar vehicles get it the most — rentals, new cars, fleet cars, and the other vehicle in a home with one of each fuel types. Wherever around Surrey, Crownpits included, the slip does not change, and neither does the first response: keep it off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Crownpits?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed through the filter and lines.
You may notice the motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Holloway Hill Recreation Ground or halfway across Crownpits. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
If you were on the M3, under 15 miles from Crownpits, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Hopping across Crownpits to the car park by Kingdom Hall is one thing; driving for Chichester, under 25 miles away, is another, since each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Let us know about how far it had come.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has run there is more of it. When it is spotted quickly, long-term damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Crownpits?
The car remains put, whether that is a street near St John the Baptist, Busbridge, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Crownpits, and our van travels to it. The job depends on three answers, and we get first — what went in, the amount, and whether your motor has run.
Then that tank is cleared where your car sits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. A test of the vehicle comes at the end, after clean diesel is added and the fuel filter gets cleaned or, where needed, replaced. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Bleeding the system with new diesel comes last. You head off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive around Crownpits or in a bay at Godalming. Before leaving, our engineers confirm it's running correctly with fresh diesel in. Because the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Crownpits, for a moment
Crownpits is a suburban area in Surrey, situated on the riverside with an elevation of around 73 metres. Crownpits lies near the towns of Godalming and Busbridge, and is also close to Holloway Hill. Crownpits has a population of approximately 4189 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Crownpits is located about 30.6 miles from London and 24.9 miles from Chichester.
AdBlue drains across Surrey, Crownpits included
AdBlue call-outs in Crownpits go to teams that serve the places around it — Busbridge, Holloway Hill plus Godalming — and much of Surrey further out, throughout GU postcodes. Guessing won't help by a border or anywhere tricky to pin down; ring and ask.
Wherever the vehicle sits — your drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Crownpits, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Crownpits
Every job differs, and so no single quote is fair. Three things change the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a van can reach it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight gap behind Godalming Baptist Church.
For that reason, every enquiry from Crownpits begins with the same trio — what got in, what quantity, whether it ran — before a figure. When they are known, a range becomes one firm number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Alongside your car around Crownpits, right now?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Crownpits or wherever within Surrey.