AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Danaway? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the motor. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; damage just comes when your pump starts pulling it. In Danaway, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Danaway, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- Put your hazards on if you're anywhere near moving traffic.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about how much, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting ME9 7, or whatever street is closest, and the van reaches you directly — so ring wherever you stand.
Don't do these:
- No starting the motor — not briefly, not to shift your vehicle.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way along Maidstone Road.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the verge.
The staff working at any Danaway filling station — the Texaco among them — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. On your own driveway, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. From a separate reservoir it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. Nothing in an injection pump is made for this fluid — and none of that was meant to go through one.
It doesn't combine. Once it is tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Newington last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of damage come from there. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and clog filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's flushed out. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, leaving it till morning around Danaway makes it worse. In your tank alone, time does nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, which is a second form of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. No harm is done as long as it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only once your motor works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the car sits in Keycol or the centre of Danaway, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the following fill.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever around Kent the car has come to rest, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Danaway
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Borden Church of England Primary School. A driver tips the bottle in at home, just off Wormdale Hill Overbridge, as the day ends. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up the car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside the pub in the village.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same slip, same first step — leave it off — anywhere you are in Danaway or the rest of Kent.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Danaway?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, after passing through the fuel filter and pipework.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Sittingbourne & Milton Regis Golf Club or halfway across Danaway. No starting it again to test: pull over when it is safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M2, under a mile from Danaway, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
A quick hop across Danaway to the car park by Newington Village Hall is one thing; driving towards Southend-on-Sea, under 15 miles away, is something else, since each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Tell us about how far it had come.
There is more to rinse out once your engine has been started, and we do all of it where the car has stopped. When it is spotted soon, lasting damage is very rare.
Danaway: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Danaway: a side street close to Newington Village Sign, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work rests on three replies, and our technicians ask for before all else — which fluid got in, the amount, and whether your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one after your tank is drained, on the spot. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out unaided, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers get there, if the motor has not run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the system with fresh diesel comes last. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, at Newington or on a driveway in Danaway. The check before our engineers go is that it runs properly on clean diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never needs to go to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About Danaway and where it is
Danaway is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 46 metres, and is located approximately 36.5 miles from London. Danaway has a population of around 612 people and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Danaway is close to nearby places such as Chesley, Chestnut Street, and Oad Street, and is also near the city of Southend-on-Sea, which is 14.1 miles away. Danaway sits in a rural area of the South East region, with the nearest city providing access to various amenities.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Danaway included
Over the ME postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs in Danaway reach most of Kent as well, Chesley, Chestnut Street and Oad Street among them. Near a boundary, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
Danaway is a rural 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 stands, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Danaway: the cost of fixing it
No flat price could be honest, since each job is different. What shifts the price is, first, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Borden Church.
That's why every call from Danaway starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it's run. Given those replies, the range narrows to one fixed figure.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before a van leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Alongside the vehicle in Danaway, still?
Then, the best thing to do with your car is to leave it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Danaway or wherever within Kent, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran.