Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dalestorth
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition too. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing happens until your engine pulls it round. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle sits in Dalestorth. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Dalestorth: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- Pull the keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much amount? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our technicians will see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting NG17 3, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to move your car.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance down Omberley Avenue is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Emptying that tank yourself beside the road is not one to try.
On a forecourt around Dalestorth, whether it's the JET or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. On your own driveway, don't move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and no part of it was meant to go that way.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. It drops, because it is denser than diesel, and settles down where the intake takes its fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Skegby last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of damage come from there. What remains once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in narrow passages and clog filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it is cleared out. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight in Dalestorth makes it worse. In your tank alone, waiting costs nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Essar and you have a fault of thin fuel. Mixed through your diesel and left still, it's harmless at that stage; running your engine does the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, so it can't simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue splits back from your diesel, so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush counts so much, and trying the engine "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Ladybrook or the heart of Dalestorth alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Wherever around Nottinghamshire your car has come to rest, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Dalestorth?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars rests right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Dalestorth Primary and Nursery School the refill is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Mansfield Road. Or a driver new to that flap refills the vehicle after dark, parked in the car park outside Fox and Crown.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the spare motor in a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people use least. An identical slip, same first step — keep it switched off — anywhere you are in Dalestorth or the rest of Nottinghamshire.
Dalestorth: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. Through the filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Stoneyford Road Recreation Ground, perhaps, or part way across Dalestorth. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M1, under 5 miles from Dalestorth, by the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Dalestorth to the car park by Skegby Methodist Church and Anchor Centre is a very different job from a run towards Nottingham, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to clean out once the motor has run, and we do all of it where the vehicle has come to a stop. Lasting damage is very unusual if it is spotted quickly.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Dalestorth
A street by The Bridge Baptist Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere your car has stopped around Dalestorth, our technicians come to it. The job depends on three answers, which our engineers ask for first — what went in, the amount, and whether your engine has turned over.
Right there, the tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. A full flush matters much more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue won't wash out on its own. Next, the filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a test of the vehicle. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Lastly, the system is bled with new diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, outside Sutton Parkway or on a drive in Dalestorth. The check before our technicians go is that it runs correctly on new diesel. As the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Dalestorth itself
Dalestorth is a locality in Nottinghamshire, situated approximately 13 miles north of Nottingham and 122 miles north of London. Dalestorth sits at an elevation of around 166 metres, surrounded by other nearby places such as Sutton Forest Side and Sutton in Ashfield. Dalestorth is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the typical residential development of the East Midlands region. Dalestorth has a population of around 2396 people, making it a small but established community.
AdBlue drains in Dalestorth and across Nottinghamshire
Sutton Forest Side, New Cross and Sutton in Ashfield are among the towns near Dalestorth that the same teams reach, along with much of Nottinghamshire beyond, over the NG postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or somewhere tricky to pin down; phone and ask.
Wherever the vehicle sits — your drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a filling station — our technicians drain it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; that suits Dalestorth, a small village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Dalestorth
Every job differs, so no single quote would be fair. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where your car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Skegby Troughs.
For that reason, every enquiry from Dalestorth begins by asking the same trio — what got in, what quantity, if the engine ran — before any quote. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
The price is quoted during the call, before a van sets off; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
Dalestorth: still next to the vehicle?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step available. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Dalestorth or anywhere within Nottinghamshire, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.