Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Epsom Downs
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once your pump begins pulling it. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully purged where the car stands around Epsom Downs. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Epsom Downs: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- The van finds you quickest with a postcode starting KT17 4, or just the name of a street close by, so call from the car.
Do not:
- Shifting the car even a short way is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way along Longdown Lane South.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Epsom Downs forecourt — the Texaco included — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, the vehicle stays exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Stored in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust to treat the fumes. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and settles low where the pickup draws its fuel from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it sits beneath the diesel, which is why a car filled in North Looe last night and not switched on remains the straightforward one, provided nobody turns your key.
From there it causes 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's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps labouring on the parts it hits for as long as it remains there. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning in Epsom Downs makes things worse. Inside the tank only, waiting costs nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
A problem of thinned fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Asda. Blended into the diesel and sitting still, it is harmless for now; using the motor does the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits again — and the next fill won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Epsom Downs or out in Epsom, costs more than nearly any other slip.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever in Surrey your vehicle has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Epsom Downs
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — can appear the same. Nobody means it; many designs invite it. Mostly it's never the forecourt: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and tips it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Warren Mead Infant School the refill is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Ruden Way. One more version: dim light, a pub car park by Tattenham Corner, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new car, a company car, or the spare motor of a home with one of each fuels — the vehicles drivers know least. Wherever you are around Epsom Downs or the rest of Surrey, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Epsom Downs: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. Through the filter, along the lines, and — with any running — on to the injection pump and every injector: that's how far it travels.
Maybe returning from Epsom Downs Golf Club, or midway across Epsom Downs, the motor may go rough, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or stall. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off rather than testing it again. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Epsom Downs lies under 3 miles from the M25; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
Distance matters: each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, so heading for Westminster, under 15 miles away, makes a much bigger job than crossing Epsom Downs to the car park by View Point. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once the motor has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. Long-term damage is very rare when it's caught soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Epsom Downs?
A road by Tattenhams Community Library, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt: wherever your vehicle has come to rest around Epsom Downs, we come to it. The job depends on three answers, which we ask for first — which fluid was put in, the amount, and if your motor has run.
Then the tank is emptied where your car stands, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through because residue won't wash out unaided. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers arrive, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to bleed your system on clean diesel. You drive off as soon as our engineers have started it, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive in Epsom Downs or in a space by the nearest station. Before we go, we make sure it's running properly with fresh diesel in. As the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Epsom Downs itself
Epsom Downs is a village in Surrey, situated on a plateau of chalk downland at an elevation of around 112 metres. Epsom Downs lies approximately 13.8 miles south of London and is close to several nearby settlements, including Nork, Great Burgh, and Woodcote. Epsom Downs is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and remains a relatively small community with a population of around 966 residents.
Epsom Downs and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs in Epsom Downs also cover the places about it, Nork, Great Burgh and Woodcote among them, and most of Surrey beyond, across the KT postcode area. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or somewhere hard to describe; phone and check.
Epsom Downs is a rural village, and a call-out 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, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Epsom Downs?
Because each jobs differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of your car, because an open driveway is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight spot behind Nork Community Centre.
Ahead of a quote, not afterwards, each enquiry from Epsom Downs begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, and if the engine ran. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Our price is given on the call, before a van leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Still alongside your car around Epsom Downs?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if it ran is all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest across Surrey, Epsom Downs too.