AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Edge End? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off and leave your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm happens till the engine pulls it round. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Edge End. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Edge End: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take the keys away.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and about how much, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting BB6 7, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your car: the engine remains off.
- Switching the key to ignition alone sets your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is pointless.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Edge End.
- Draining that tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
Rolling the vehicle off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Edge End forecourt you are on, the Morrisons included. At your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Stored 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 the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — quite unlike fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Waverledge last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue sits at the base of the tank, untouched — though it will be the first thing through if the motor runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of damage. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. Pipes holding AdBlue spell harm overnight for a car parked in Edge End. Just in that tank, it stays the same. And there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that need it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the Ridings Auto Services, and this problem is diluted fuel. Mixed through your diesel and left still, it is no threat for now; using your engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, so it cannot simply be run through. Whether your car sits in Hindle Fold or the centre of Edge End, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Wherever in Lancashire your car has stopped, an unrun engine means the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest bit of any fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Edge End?
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. It usually takes place at home, from a bottle bought en route home, not at the filling station.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Great Harwood Primary School. Someone tips the bottle in outside their house, just off Fielding Lane, as the day ends. One more pattern: darkness, the car park outside The Commercial, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — rentals, brand-new ones, company cars, and the other motor of a family with one of each fuel types. Wherever around Lancashire, Edge End as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Edge End, and the motor started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been drawn through the fuel filter and the lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Haydock Square, or midway across Edge End, the motor might go lumpy, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or cut out. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep it off instead of restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M65, under 3 miles from Edge End, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading for Preston, under 15 miles away, gives a much larger job than crossing Edge End to the car park by Towngate Cafe. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where your car has come to a stop, and once the motor has run there is more of it. When it's noticed soon, lasting damage is very uncommon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Edge End?
The car stays put, whether that is a road beside Town_Hall, a driveway, a layby or a filling station around Edge End, and our van travels to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and if your motor has been run, because those replies settle this work.
Next, draining your tank right there takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. What remains from AdBlue won't wash away by itself, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. After that, the filter: flushed, or replaced if it has to be. Then fresh diesel, and then a check of your car. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, if the motor hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that's the last step. You head off as soon as our engineers have started the car, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Edge End or in a space by Rishton. The check before we go is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Edge End
Edge End is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Lancashire, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Edge End sits at an elevation of 155 metres, approximately 11.7 miles from Preston and 184.4 miles from London. Edge End is located near other local places such as Great Harwood, Lower Fold, and Cliffe, and has a population of around 4920 residents.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Edge End included
Over the BB postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs in Edge End serve most of Lancashire as well, Great Harwood, Lower Fold and Cliffe included. Assuming won't help close to a border or anywhere tricky to describe; phone and ask.
No towing is needed. In Edge End, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: the car is emptied where it stands, whether in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
Edge End: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No single figure could be fair, since each job is different. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the car, because an open drive is easier for a technician to get to safely than a tight gap behind Towngate Pentecostal.
Which fluid went in, what quantity, plus whether the engine ran: each Edge End call opens with exactly that, before any quote, never afterwards. Their answers shrink a range right down to one number.
Our quote is given during the call, before a van leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Edge End: still alongside the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Edge End or wherever within Lancashire.