AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Earnshaw Bridge? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and the ignition too. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens until the engine pulls it round. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your car sits around Earnshaw Bridge. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Earnshaw Bridge: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- Which product, and roughly how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and our engineers can know.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting PR26 8, or simply the name of a street close by, so call from the car.
Things not to do:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to shift your car.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out instead of blending.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short way up Longmeanygate.
- Emptying that tank yourself by the road is not one to try.
Get the attendants to help you move your vehicle away from the pumps if you're on a forecourt in Earnshaw Bridge, whether it is the Morrisons or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a dedicated reservoir it goes directly to the exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays apart instead of mixing — quite unlike fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the same spot the intake sucks from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits beneath the diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Lower House yesterday and never started stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns the key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it is flushed out. Overnight, a car sitting around Earnshaw Bridge with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it's only inside the tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, which is a second form of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is commonly worse than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol at the Tesco. Mixed through the diesel and sitting still, it's no threat for now; using the motor does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, and so it can't just be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Golden Hill or the centre of Earnshaw Bridge, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush matters for more. Why: it won't stay blended, and so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Lancashire the car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Earnshaw Bridge
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it takes place 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 Northbrook Primary Academy. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive close to Mill View Court. Another version: dim light, the car park by The Wheatsheaf Inn, and someone using that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a fleet vehicle, or the other vehicle of a home with one of each fuels — the vehicles drivers know least. Leave it off: that is the first step to the same mistake, wherever around Earnshaw Bridge or the rest of Lancashire you are.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Earnshaw Bridge?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been sucked through the filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from New Earnshaw Farm, perhaps, or part way across Earnshaw Bridge. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M6, under 3 miles from Earnshaw Bridge, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
Mileage matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving towards Preston, under 5 miles away, makes a far bigger job than hopping across Earnshaw Bridge to the car park by Bobby The Iron Horse. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage if it is noticed early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Earnshaw Bridge
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Earnshaw Bridge: a side street near St John's Parish Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and if your engine has been run, since those replies decide the work.
Then the tank is drained where the vehicle waits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't wash away by itself. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no issue, and it is hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on clean diesel. Then our technicians fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space outside Leyland or a driveway in Earnshaw Bridge. It's checked on new diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our engineers leave. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Earnshaw Bridge and where it is
Earnshaw Bridge is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside at a low elevation of around 24 metres. Earnshaw Bridge lies close to the city of Preston, approximately 4.2 miles away, and is near other local places such as The Straits, Broadfield, and Seven Stars. Earnshaw Bridge has a population of around 4595 people and predominantly features semi-detached housing.
Earnshaw Bridge and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Our vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Earnshaw Bridge also cover the places round it, The Straits, Broadfield and Seven Stars among them, and most of Lancashire beyond, across the PR postcode area. Assuming won't help by a county line or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
Earnshaw Bridge is a residential suburb, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Earnshaw Bridge: the cost of fixing it
No single price would be fair, since each job differs. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open driveway is easier for a technician to get to safely than a tight space behind Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.
That's why every call from Earnshaw Bridge starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Those replies shrink the range down to a single number.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Still alongside the vehicle in Earnshaw Bridge?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Earnshaw Bridge or wherever within Lancashire.