AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Drynham? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and your ignition as well. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The trouble begins once it is pulled through the pump — it will not ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Drynham, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the motor has been run. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do straight away, Drynham: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Pocket your keys, and that prevents someone turning the power on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting BA14 0, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: the engine stays off.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short stretch along Drynham Lane.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
Rolling the car off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Drynham forecourt you are on, the BP included. On your own drive, don't touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. No part in an injection pump is designed for this liquid — and no part of that was intended to travel that way.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very place the intake draws from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a car filled in West Ashton yesterday and never started remains the straightforward one, provided nobody touches the key.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. Lines holding AdBlue mean harm by morning for a car sitting around Drynham. Only in that tank, it stays stable. And there is the water: it brings no protection to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
An issue of thin fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol at the Tesco. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's in the tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It can't just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle is in Yarnbrook or the heart of Drynham, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits only inside your tank, the simplest section of the entire system to empty, anywhere the car has stopped across Wiltshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Drynham: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually happens outside the house, from a bottle grabbed on the journey home, not at the forecourt.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. The refill is hurried outside Willowbrook Primary School, because your dash lit up with a warning while the children were taken off. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway close to Kingfisher Close. Otherwise, after dark by The Dursley Arms, the vehicle is topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet car, or the spare vehicle of a family with both fuel types — the vehicles people use least. An identical slip, an identical first step — keep it switched off — anywhere you are around Drynham or the remainder of Wiltshire.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Drynham, and the motor started?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been sucked through the filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors.
Expect rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Biss Wood, say, or midway across Drynham. Stop when safe. Switch off. Leave the car off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M4, under 15 miles from Drynham, by the first junction and park somewhere safe, not driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system. That is why crossing Drynham to park near TK Maxx and a drive of under 10 miles towards Bath are very different jobs. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to rinse out once your engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. Lasting damage is very rare if it is caught early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Drynham?
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a street near Trowbridge Mosque, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Drynham, and our van comes to it. The work depends on three answers, and our technicians get before all else — what was put in, the quantity, and if the engine has run.
Then your tank is emptied where your car waits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the fuel system with fresh diesel comes last. At that point we start it and you set off, whether from a parking bay by Trowbridge or a drive around Drynham. It is tested on fresh diesel to be sure it runs properly before we go. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Drynham
Drynham is a locality in Wiltshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 41 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Drynham lies near the city of Bath, approximately 8.8 miles away, and is also close to other nearby places such as Lower Studley and Longfield. Drynham has a population of around 702 residents and is located in the South West region of England, about 90.2 miles from London. Drynham is part of the wider rural landscape of Wiltshire, with the River Avon flowing nearby.
AdBlue drains across Drynham and Wiltshire
Over the BA postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Drynham serve much of Wiltshire too, Lower Studley, Longfield and North Bradley among them. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Anywhere the vehicle sits — a drive at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — we empty it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Drynham, a small village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Drynham: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, so no fixed quote would be honest. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Odeon.
Ahead of any quote, never after, every call from Drynham opens with three questions: the fuel, the amount, plus if the engine ran. Once they are answered, a range becomes a single firm figure.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. While the van is on the way, check your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Alongside your car in Drynham, still?
Not touching the car is, right now, the most useful move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Drynham or wherever in Wiltshire.