AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Eggbuckland? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your motor off then keep your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once the pump starts pulling it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly rinsed where the car stands in Eggbuckland. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Eggbuckland: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, which stops someone turning the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about what quantity, save the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting PL6 5, or whatever street lies nearest, and our van reaches you directly — so ring from wherever you are.
Things not to do:
- Moving your car even a short way is no reason to start your motor.
- The ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch down Eggbuckland Road.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
The attendants working at any Eggbuckland filling station — the Esso among them — will usually help pushing it clear if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very place the intake sucks from. When your system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Leigham yesterday and never started remains the simple one, as long as nobody turns the key.
Once it is drawn in, the damage comes in two forms. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going till it is cleared out. Overnight, a vehicle sitting around Eggbuckland with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it is only in the tank, nothing changes. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate kind of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Asda, and the problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is inside your tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Lower Compton or the middle of Eggbuckland.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only in the tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest in Devon.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Eggbuckland
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap — can appear the same. Nobody means it; plenty of designs allow it. A container bought while heading home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the typical story.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. The top-up gets rushed outside Austin Farm Academy, after the dash lit up with a warning while the children were taken in. Someone tips the container in at home, right off Shallowford Road, as the day ends. Else, after dark outside The Prince Maurice, the car is topped up by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the cars people 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 step to an identical mistake, anywhere in Eggbuckland or the rest of Devon you are.
Eggbuckland: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Given any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed through your filter and lines.
Maybe returning from Frogmore Field, or part way across Eggbuckland, the motor may run lumpy, smoke, drop pace, flash the dash or stall. No starting it again to check: pull over when it is safe, then turn everything off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Eggbuckland sits under 50 miles from the M5; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop safely rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Eggbuckland to the car park by Fort Austin is one matter; driving for Plymouth, under 3 miles away, is something else, since each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Tell us about how far it had come.
We do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has ended up, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it is noticed early.
Eggbuckland: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A road by St Edward's Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere the car has come to rest around Eggbuckland, we travel to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has run, since those replies settle this work.
Then that tank is emptied where your car waits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters much more after AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't wash away on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that is the last step. Starting the car comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, at Plymouth or on a driveway in Eggbuckland. It's checked on new diesel to confirm it runs properly before our engineers go. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Eggbuckland, briefly
Eggbuckland is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Plymouth in Devon, sitting at an elevation of 38 metres above sea level. Eggbuckland is bordered by nearby places such as Efford, Higher Compton, and Hartley Vale, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Eggbuckland is situated close to the coast, with the city of Plymouth just 2.4 miles away, and is home to a population of approximately 5844 residents. Eggbuckland's proximity to the sea and its relatively low elevation give it a distinctive coastal setting.
AdBlue drains across Eggbuckland and Devon
AdBlue call-outs around Eggbuckland are passed to vans that serve the places near it — Efford, Higher Compton as well as Hartley Vale — and much of Devon beyond, across PL postcodes. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Eggbuckland is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Eggbuckland: the cost of fixing it
No single price could be fair, since each job is different. Three things move the cost: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind The Plymouth Blitz War Memorial.
Ahead of any quote, never after, each call from Eggbuckland begins with the same three questions: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Eggbuckland: still beside the vehicle?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Eggbuckland or anywhere within Devon, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.