AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dolton? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the fuel system pulls it in. If the motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully cleaned where your car stands around Dolton. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Dolton
Do these:
- Pull the keys out, so no one switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so don't bin it away.
- Call just where you are. Quote a EX19 8 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to shift the car.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short way down South Street.
- By the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
The attendants working at any Dolton forecourt — the the nearest petrol station included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. On your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Beaford last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. It attacks some metals used in fuel components, working on any part it reaches until it is cleared completely. And when the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. A vehicle left standing in Dolton with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water part harms them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
A fault of thinned fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol at the another forecourt nearby. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable liquid. It can't just be run through, because it does not burn. It does not stay mixed, so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Huish or the middle of Dolton.
As with petrol, there is good news. Emptying a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue stays in it — anywhere across Devon your vehicle sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Dolton: how it ends up there
Plenty of motors put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and after dark the two can look identical. No one intends it. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside Dolton Church of England Primary School, because the dash flashed with a warning as the children were dropped in. Near North Street, someone tips a container in at home after work. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up the vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park by Rams Head Inn.
Rented cars, new vehicles, fleet cars, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles get it the most. Leave it switched off: that's the first response to an identical slip, anywhere in Dolton or the remainder of Devon you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Dolton, and your engine started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through the fuel filter and pipework.
Maybe coming back from Viltham Copse, or midway across Dolton, your engine may run rough, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Exit the M5, under 50 miles from Dolton, by the next junction and stop safely, not driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Dolton to the car park by St Edmund is a very different job from a run towards Exeter, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
There's more to rinse out once the engine has been run, and we do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage if it's spotted quickly.
Dolton: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The car stays put, whether that is a street near St Peter, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in Dolton, and the van travels to it. The job depends on three replies, which our engineers ask for before all else — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if the motor has run.
Then your tank is cleared where the car stands, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The fuel system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
The final step is to bleed the fuel system on new diesel. Then our engineers start the engine and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Portsmouth Arms or a drive around Dolton. The test before our technicians go is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Dolton itself
Dolton is a small village in inland Devon, situated approximately 117 metres above sea level. Dolton lies near the villages of Iddlecott, Dowland, and Upcott, and is about 24.7 miles from Exeter. Dolton has a population of around 682 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Dolton is located in the South West region of England, about 174.3 miles from London.
Dolton and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the EX postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs in Dolton serve much of Devon too, Iddlecott, Dowland and Upcott among them. Guessing won't help by a border or anywhere tricky to pin down; ring and check.
No moving is needed. In Dolton, a rural village, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is emptied where it stands, be it on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Dolton?
Because each jobs differ, a single price wouldn't be fair. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the car, since an open drive is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight space behind Dowland Barton.
For that in mind, every call from Dolton opens by asking the same trio — what went in, how much, whether the engine ran — before a quote. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Dolton and still next to your car?
Not touching the car is, right now, the best thing you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Dolton or anywhere across Devon.