AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Densole? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition too. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system pulls it in. In Densole, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps straight away, Densole: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, take the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much quantity? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and we will see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting CT18 7, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition goes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- Adding more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Coach Road.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
Rolling your car off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Densole forecourt you're on, the Hawkinge Fuel Express or any other. On that drive, your car remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Swingfield Minnis last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue waits at the base of the tank, untouched — but it will be first through once your motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of damage. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it eats at some metals, every part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays inside. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting till morning around Densole makes it worse. In that tank alone, time costs nothing. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing through them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol from the Sainsbury's. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is in your tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Whether the vehicle is in Paddlesworth or the heart of Densole, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other mistake, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the next tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and the tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Kent your car is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Densole?
It's not deliberate. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. A bottle bought while heading home and tipped in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the typical story.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside Hawkinge Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the car. A driver pours the container in at home, just off Canterbury Road, as the day ends. One more pattern: dim light, the car park outside Black Horse, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the spare car in a home with both fuels — the vehicles people know least. Keep it off: that is the first response to an identical mistake, wherever around Densole or the remainder of Kent you are.
Densole: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each might appear, maybe part way across Densole or returning from Whitegate Plantation. No starting it again to check: stop when safe, then switch everything off. Every start pulls more of that through.
Densole sits under 3 miles from the M20; if you were on it, exit at the first junction and pull up safely rather than driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system, and so driving towards Canterbury, under 15 miles away, makes a much bigger job than hopping across Densole to the car park by St Martin. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Lasting damage is very rare if it's caught soon.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Densole
A street by Royal Air Force Station - Hawkinge Memorial, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the car has come to rest around Densole, our engineers come to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether your motor has run, because those answers decide the work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together after your tank is drained, right there. The system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Testing the vehicle comes at the end, once clean diesel is added and the filter is flushed or, where necessary, swapped. If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, the system is bled with new diesel. Then our technicians fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay outside Folkestone West or a driveway in Densole. It's checked on new diesel to be sure it runs properly before we leave. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Densole, briefly
Densole is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of around 150 metres, approximately 10.8 miles from Canterbury. Densole has a population of around 888 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Densole is also located near other small settlements such as Ridge Row, Hawkinge, and Acrise, and is about 61.3 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Densole included
Ridge Row, Hawkinge and Acrise are among the towns near Densole that the same teams serve, together with most of Kent beyond, throughout the CT postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Densole is a rural village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
Densole: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No single figure could be honest, since every job differs. What shifts the price is, firstly, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Hawkinge Village Hall.
That is why every call from Densole starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Those replies turn a range into a straight quote.
The price is given on the call, before a van leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Still alongside the car in Densole?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Densole or anywhere in Kent.