Ealing: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your engine off and leave your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Ealing, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the motor has run. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Ealing: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the product and the quantity, so don't throw it out.
- Our van locates you fastest with a postcode starting W5 5, or just the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the spot.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: the engine remains off.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets the pump running on many diesels. Avoid it.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's pointless.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up The Broadway.
- Draining the tank on your own beside the road isn't worth trying.
Moving the car away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Ealing forecourt you are on, the Shell or any other. At home, the vehicle stays exactly as it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. Stored in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. No part inside a fuel pump is made for this fluid — and no part of it was meant to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: 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 South Acton 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 drawn it in.
It causes two kinds of damage 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, so it keeps labouring on the components it gets to for as long as it remains there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning in Ealing makes it worse. Inside your tank only, time does nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a problem of thin fuel. Mixed into the diesel and left still, it is harmless at that stage; running the motor does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Whether your car is in Park Royal or the heart of Ealing, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion survive the next fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere across Greater London the car has stopped, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Ealing: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container bought while heading home and poured in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the usual story.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Christ the Saviour Church of England Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the vehicle. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive near Oak Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The North Star, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
Hired cars, brand-new vehicles, company vehicles, or the second vehicle in a home with one of each: the least familiar cars get it the most. Wherever you are around Ealing or the remainder of Greater London, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Ealing?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. With any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, after passing via the fuel filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or stalling: each might appear, perhaps part way across Ealing or returning from Haven Green. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Ealing lies under 3 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and pull up safely rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Ealing to the car park by Small Work Horse is one thing; heading towards Westminster, under 10 miles away, is another, since each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once the motor has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. If it is spotted quickly, permanent damage is very unusual.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Ealing?
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Ealing: a side street close to Arcadia Shopping Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether your motor has been run, since those answers determine this work.
Right there, your tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. What remains from AdBlue will not wash out unaided, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than with petrol. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that's the last step. Whether it is a parking space by Ealing Broadway or a driveway around Ealing, that is where we start it and you set off. Before we go, our engineers check it's running properly with new diesel in. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. At the end, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Ealing itself
Ealing is a locality in west London, situated approximately 7.5 miles from central London and 7.6 miles from Westminster. Ealing sits at an elevation of around 37 metres, with its predominant housing stock consisting of flats. Ealing is surrounded by nearby places such as West Acton, West Ealing, and Hanwell, and has a population of around 6779 residents.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Ealing included
Over the W postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs in Ealing serve most of Greater London as well, West Acton, West Ealing and Hanwell included. Assuming won't help by a border or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
A mobile service fits Ealing, a small village: you have no need to take the car to us, because our engineers empty it there, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Ealing: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Not one flat figure could be fair, since each job differs. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind TK Maxx.
With that in mind, every call from Ealing begins with the same trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, if it ran — ahead of a figure. Those answers narrow the range right down to one number.
Before a van sets off, you are told the quote on the phone. Then payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Ealing: still next to the vehicle?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the most useful thing you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Ealing or anywhere in Greater London, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran.