AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Drabblegate? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and your ignition as well. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. The trouble starts once it is pulled through the pump — it won't ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Drabblegate, is normally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before your motor has been run. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Drabblegate: the first few minutes
Do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, pull the keys away.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting NR11 6, or just the name of a street close by, so call from the spot.
Do not:
- No starting the motor — not briefly, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself starts the pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch up Abbots Lane.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the verge.
The attendants on duty at any Drabblegate forecourt — the BP included — will usually help pushing it clear if you ask. On that drive, the vehicle remains exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor lets out. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Tuttington last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it is flushed out. If the AdBlue is in the lines, leaving it till morning in Drabblegate makes things worse. In your tank only, waiting does nothing. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, which is a second form of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger issue?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the Shell, and this issue is thinned fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Mixed into the diesel and sitting in that tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Blickling or the centre of Drabblegate, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Wherever across Norfolk your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Drabblegate: how it ends up there
It is not on purpose. Many cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, now and then under a single flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. It mostly takes place outside the house, from a container grabbed on the journey home, not at the filling station.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside St Michael's Church of England VA Primary and Nursery School. After work, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Aylsham Bypass. Or your car is topped up in the car park at The Banningham Crown, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
Rented cars, new vehicles, fleet motors, or the second vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it the most. Leave it off: that's the first response to the same mistake, wherever around Drabblegate or the remainder of Norfolk you happen to be.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Drabblegate, and your engine started?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and each injector, after passing via the fuel filter and pipework.
You may notice the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Cubitt's Carr or halfway across Drabblegate. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Leave it off instead of restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M11, over 50 miles from Drabblegate, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, and so heading for Norwich, under 15 miles away, makes a much larger job than hopping across Drabblegate to the car park by Banningham Village Sign. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Caught soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Drabblegate?
Wherever it has stopped in Drabblegate — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a road by Saint Botolph — our van comes to your car. What went in, roughly the quantity, plus if your engine has been run: our technicians ask before all else, since those decide the job.
Then your tank is emptied where your car stands, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Testing the car comes last, after clean diesel goes in and the filter gets cleaned or, where needed, replaced. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
New diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that's the final step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, outside North Walsham or on a driveway in Drabblegate. The test before our engineers leave is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Drabblegate
Drabblegate is a small locality in Norfolk, situated on the riverside at a low elevation of around 17 metres. Drabblegate lies near the city of Norwich, approximately 12.5 miles away, and is close to other nearby places such as Ingworth, Banningham, and Aylsham. Drabblegate has a population of around 593 people and predominantly features detached housing.
Drabblegate and Norfolk: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the NR postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs around Drabblegate serve much of Norfolk too, Ingworth, Banningham and Aylsham included. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Drabblegate is a small village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Drabblegate: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. Three things move the cost: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Banningham & Colby Community Hall.
Ahead of a figure, not after, each call from Drabblegate opens with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and if the engine ran. When those are answered, a range becomes a single fixed number.
The price is quoted during the call, before anyone leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Drabblegate: still next to the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Drabblegate or anywhere in Norfolk, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran.