Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dulwich Village
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and your ignition as well. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system draws it in. In Dulwich Village, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Dulwich Village: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- Remove your keys, which prevents anyone switching the electrics on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting SE21 7, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your vehicle: the motor remains off.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself starts your pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance down Burbage Road.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the roadside.
The staff working at any Dulwich Village filling station — the Texaco among them — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays apart rather than blending — entirely unlike fuel. It sinks, since it's heavier than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its supply from. A vehicle topped up on a driveway in Brockwell Park overnight and left unstarted is the straightforward one. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but once your engine runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What is left when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny passages and clog filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it is cleared out. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight around Dulwich Village leaves things worse. In the tank alone, time costs nothing. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
An issue of thinned fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the BP. Harm just comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting in the tank, it does none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Whether the car is in West Dulwich or the centre of Dulwich Village, 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 deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
As with petrol, there is good news. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Greater London the car is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Dulwich Village?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors rests right next to the diesel filler, at times 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 driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Dulwich Hamlet Junior School. Close to Gallery Road, someone pours a bottle in on that drive after work. Otherwise, after dark outside Crown & Greyhound, your car is topped up by someone using that flap the first time.
It occurs most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it switched off: that is the first response to the same mistake, wherever around Dulwich Village or the remainder of Greater London you are.
Dulwich Village: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. The fuel filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and some running time takes it on to the injection pump and each injector.
You may see your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Gallery Road Fields or halfway across Dulwich Village. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M4, under 10 miles from Dulwich Village, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Dulwich Village to the car park by First World War memorial is a very different job from a run towards Westminster, under 5 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been run. When it is spotted quickly, lasting damage is very rare.
Dulwich Village: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Dulwich Village: a side street close to Christs Chapel, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else we ask what went in, about how much, and whether the engine has been run, because those replies determine the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one when the tank is drained, right there. A full flush matters much more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue won't wash away by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when the motor hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, the fuel system is primed with fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking bay at North Dulwich or a driveway in Dulwich Village, that is where our technicians start the car and you set off. It is tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs smoothly before we go. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Dulwich Village
Dulwich Village is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 4.5 miles from the city centre. Dulwich Village sits at an elevation of 34 metres, surrounded by other local areas such as Knights Hill, Herne Hill, and East Dulwich. Dulwich Village is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which reflects the typical residential architecture of the region. Dulwich Village has a population of around 3358 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains in Dulwich Village and across Greater London
Our vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Dulwich Village also cover the locations about it, Knights Hill, Herne Hill and East Dulwich among them, and most of Greater London beyond, across the SE postcode area. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Dulwich Village is a residential suburb, 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, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Dulwich Village: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be fair, because each job is different. What shifts the price is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Ahead of a figure, not afterwards, every enquiry from Dulwich Village begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus whether it ran. Their replies narrow a range right down to a single figure.
Our price is given on the call, before a van leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. As our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Next to your car in Dulwich Village, still?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to leave it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Dulwich Village or anywhere around Greater London.