AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Ensbury? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and your ignition as well. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system draws it in. In Ensbury, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ensbury
Things to do:
- Remove your keys, and that stops someone switching the electrics on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- Which product, and roughly how much quantity? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our technicians can know.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting BH10 7, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- Shifting your car just a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Wimborne Road.
- Draining your tank on your own by the road is not one to try.
The attendants working at any Ensbury filling station — the Esso among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. On your own drive, don't touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. From a dedicated tank it goes directly to your exhaust, treating what the motor emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than blending — quite different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. A vehicle filled on a drive in East Howe overnight and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though when the motor runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. 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, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting overnight in Ensbury makes things worse. In the tank alone, time does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, so the water content harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Asda Express and you have a fault of thin fuel. Mixed into the diesel and left unused, it is harmless at that stage; using your engine does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates again — and the following tankful will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Ensbury or out in Muscliff, does more harm than almost any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Dorset the car is sitting.
Ensbury: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many vehicles place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two may look the same. No one means 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 take place in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Hill View Primary Academy. Close to Whitelegg Way, a driver tips a container in on that drive after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Crown, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It takes place most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same mistake, same first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you happen to be around Ensbury or the rest of Dorset.
Ensbury: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. It's been pulled through your filter and the fuel lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and your injectors.
You may see your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Vernold's Coppice or halfway across Ensbury. Once you safely can, pull over then turn everything off — without restarting to see. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M27, under 25 miles from Ensbury, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Hopping across Ensbury to the car park by Kinson Methodist Church is one matter; driving for Salisbury, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been run. When it's caught early, long-term damage is very unusual.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Ensbury: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped around Ensbury — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street by All Saints — the van comes to your car. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if your motor has run, because those replies determine this work.
Then your tank is cleared where your car sits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Lastly, the system is primed with clean diesel. Then our technicians start the engine and you set off, whether from a parking bay outside Bournemouth or a driveway around Ensbury. Before we leave, we check it's running smoothly with fresh diesel in. Since the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Ensbury
Ensbury is a suburban area in Dorset, situated near the River Stour and characterised by detached housing. Ensbury sits at a low elevation of around 12 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Northbourne and Kinson. Ensbury is located near the city of Salisbury, which is approximately 21 miles away, and is part of the wider Bournemouth urban area. Ensbury has a population of around 4318 people, according to recent estimates.
Ensbury and Dorset: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the BH postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs around Ensbury serve much of Dorset as well, Northbourne, Red Hill and Kinson among them. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Ensbury is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Ensbury?
No single price could be honest, because every job is different. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the car, because an open drive is easier for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind The Church of God In Bournemouth.
What went in, what quantity, plus whether the engine ran: every Ensbury call opens by asking precisely those, ahead of a quote, not afterwards. The answers turn a range into a straight price.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Check your insurance while we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Ensbury and still beside the car?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether the engine ran are all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Dorset, Ensbury included.