AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Durley? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your engine. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system draws it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully rinsed where your car sits around Durley. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Durley, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
To do:
- Pocket your keys, and that prevents someone turning the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the product and the quantity, so do not bin it out.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting SO32 2, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant your ignition goes on, so leave the car off.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel won't thin it.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch down Parsonage Lane.
- Draining your tank on your own by the road isn't one to try.
Get the attendants to help you roll your vehicle away from the island if you are at a forecourt around Durley, whether it's the Texaco or elsewhere. On the drive, the vehicle remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Stored in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It sinks, since it's heavier than diesel, and pools down where the intake draws its supply from. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Wintershill yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once your engine turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
After it's pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filter elements and narrow passages; and, since it eats at some metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains inside. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting till morning around Durley leaves things worse. Inside the tank alone, waiting does nothing. Then there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that need it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Esso, and the issue is thinned fuel. No harm is done as long as it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only once the engine works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. It doesn't burn, so it can't simply be run through. Whether the vehicle is in Boorley Green or the centre of Durley, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other error, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following fill.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue waits just inside your tank, the simplest section of the entire system to clear, anywhere your vehicle has stopped in Hampshire.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Durley?
Many vehicles place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two may appear the same. Nobody means it. It usually occurs at home, from a container grabbed on the journey home, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Durley Church of England Controlled Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent tops up the vehicle. Near Durley Brook Road, a driver pours a bottle in at home in the evening. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Farmers Home, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar cars see it the most — hire cars, new ones, fleet ones, and the other car of a family with both fuel types. Same slip, an identical first response — keep it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Durley or the rest of Hampshire.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Durley?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been pulled through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Greenwood, or part way across Durley, your motor may go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, light up the dash or stall. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M27, under 3 miles from Durley, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not carrying on.
Distance counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system, so heading for Southampton, under 10 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Durley to the car park by Durley Memorial Hall. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to clean out once the engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where your car has ended up. Lasting damage is very uncommon if it's caught early.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Durley: what it takes
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Durley: a side street close to Church of the Holy Cross, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. What got in, roughly how much, plus whether your motor has been run: our engineers ask first, because those shape the job.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. Residue from AdBlue won't wash away by itself, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. Next, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced when it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a check of the vehicle. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers get there, if your motor hasn't run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that's the last step. After that we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay at Hedge End or a driveway in Durley. It's checked on clean diesel to be sure it runs smoothly before our engineers head off. Because the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Durley itself
Durley is a small village in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of 33 metres, approximately 6.6 miles from Southampton. Durley has a population of around 649 residents and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Durley is surrounded by nearby places such as Brown Heath, Durley Street, and Horton Heath, and is located about 62.7 miles from London.
Durley and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue call-outs in Durley also cover the places around it, Brown Heath, Durley Street and Horton Heath among them, and most of Hampshire beyond, across the SO postcode area. Phone and check instead of guessing if you're close to a county line, or anywhere awkward to explain.
Anywhere your car stands — your driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our technicians empty it there, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Durley, a rural village, well.
Durley: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. The price moves 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 rests on where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Horton Heath Community Centre.
That's why each call from Durley starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. With them, a range narrows to one fixed number.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the quote by phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. While our engineer is on the way, check your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Still beside the vehicle in Durley?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Durley or anywhere within Hampshire, once you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran.