Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ellingham
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave your motor off then keep the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble just comes when your pump starts pulling it. Caught before the engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Ellingham. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Ellingham
To do:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents anyone turning the power on.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere close to moving traffic.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a NR35 2 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift your car.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start your pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel will not weaken it.
- Even a short stretch up Mill Road is too far to drive it.
- Don't try to drain it yourself by the kerbside.
Rolling the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Ellingham forecourt you're on, the Shell included. At home, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what the engine lets out. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
It doesn't combine. After it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and settles down where the intake takes its supply from. A car filled on a drive in Kirby Green yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though once the motor turns, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It does two kinds of damage from there. It eats at certain metals used in fuel systems, working on any part it reaches till it's removed completely. And when the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and lodge in narrow passages. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning around Ellingham makes things worse. In the tank only, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the The Co-operative and you have a problem of thin fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting in your tank, it causes none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Whether the car is in Broome Street or the centre of Ellingham, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake, and the flush matters for more. Why: it won't stay blended, so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits only in the tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, wherever the vehicle has stopped in Norfolk.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Ellingham: how it ends up there
Many motors put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. Nobody intends it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Ellingham VC Primary School the refill is hurried. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway near Woodland Drive. Otherwise, in dim light outside the pub in the village, your vehicle is topped up by someone opening that flap the first time.
The least familiar vehicles see it the most — hire cars, new cars, fleet cars, and the spare motor of a home with both fuel types. Keep it off: that's the first response to the same mistake, wherever around Ellingham or the rest of Norfolk you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ellingham, and the motor started?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. The fuel filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and any running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Maybe returning from Henry's Plantation, or part way across Ellingham, the engine may go rough, smoke, drop pace, flash the dash or cut out. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Keep the car off rather than testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M11, over 50 miles from Ellingham, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Mileage matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, and so driving for Norwich, under 15 miles away, makes a much bigger job than crossing Ellingham to the car park by Kirby Cane Village Sign. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to rinse out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where the vehicle has come to a stop. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Ellingham?
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Ellingham: a side street close to Ellingham Village Sign, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work rests on three replies, and we ask for before all else — what was put in, the quantity, and whether your engine has run.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. Your system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of your car follows at the end, once clean diesel is added and your filter gets flushed or, where necessary, swapped. About half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs where the engine has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, at Beccles or on a drive in Ellingham. Before we go, our technicians confirm it's running correctly with clean diesel in. As the job is done in full where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Ellingham
Ellingham is a small village in Norfolk, situated inland near the River Waveney, with an elevation of around 5 metres above sea level. Ellingham lies approximately 13 miles south of Norwich and 96 miles north-east of London, within a network of rural villages and hamlets including Kirby Row, Kirby Cane, and West End. Ellingham has a population of around 681 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Ellingham remains a quiet, rural community with a strong sense of local identity.
AdBlue drains across Norfolk, Ellingham included
Our vans that answer AdBlue jobs around Ellingham also cover the locations around it, Kirby Row, Kirby Cane and West End among them, and most of Norfolk beyond, across the NR postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
A van that comes to you suits Ellingham, a rural village: you have no need to take your car to us, since our technicians empty it there, in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Ellingham
Every job differs, and so not one single price is honest. The cost 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 the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Saint Mary's Church.
Before a figure, never afterwards, each call from Ellingham begins with three questions: the liquid, the amount, and whether it ran. The replies turn a range into a straight price.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Ellingham: still next to the vehicle?
Then, touch nothing — that is the most helpful move available. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Ellingham or wherever in Norfolk, after you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.