AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Eton? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and your ignition as well. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. As it is water-based, it will not ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only comes when your pump begins drawing it. In Eton, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Eton
To do:
- Remove your keys, which stops someone turning the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting SL4 6, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: your motor remains off.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out instead of blending.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch down Sun Close.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself by the roadside.
On a forecourt around Eton, whether it is the BP or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. At your own driveway, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. From a separate tank it goes directly to the exhaust, cleaning what your motor lets out. No part inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was meant to travel that way.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the very place the intake sucks from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Myrke last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. 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, and so it keeps running on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Eton makes things worse. In the tank only, time costs nothing. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector depend on diesel running through them, so the water content harms them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that is the whole fault. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's inside the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, because it separates back out — and the next fill will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Eton or out in Clewer New Town, does more harm than almost any other error.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the easiest part on a fuel system, and without start-up, the AdBlue remains in there — wherever in Berkshire the car has stopped.
Eton: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not deliberate. Many cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy after dark. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Eton Porny CofE First School the top-up is rushed. Close to High Street, someone pours a container in at home after work. Or a driver new to that flap refills your car after dark, stopped in the car park outside Henry VI.
Rented cars, new motors, company cars, or the second car in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles get it most. Anywhere in Berkshire, Eton included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Eton: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been drawn through your filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Cutlers Ait, or part way across Eton, your engine may go rough, smoke, drop pace, flash the dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M4, under a mile from Eton, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Eton to the car park by St John the Evangelist is a very different job from a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where the car has stopped, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. When it is caught quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Eton
A street by Lower Chapel, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: wherever the vehicle has come to rest around Eton, we come to it. The work depends on three answers, and our engineers ask for before all else — which fluid got in, the quantity, and if your engine has turned over.
Then that tank is drained where your car stands, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians turn up, if the engine has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the last step. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, by Windsor & Eton Riverside or on a driveway around Eton. It is checked on clean diesel to be sure it runs properly before our technicians head off. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Eton itself
Eton is a town situated on the River Thames in Berkshire, with a population of around 10151 people. Eton sits at an elevation of 24 metres, adjacent to the larger town of Windsor and near Clewer Village and Chalvey. Eton is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting its historic development as a residential centre. Eton is located approximately 20.8 miles west of central London, with Westminster being the nearest major city.
AdBlue drains across Eton and Berkshire
Throughout the SL postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs around Eton reach most of Berkshire too, Windsor, Clewer Village and Chalvey included. Guessing won't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
No moving is needed. In Eton, a riverside town, a mobile service fits: your vehicle is emptied where it stands, be it in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Eton: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs vary, a flat price would not be honest. Three things shift the price: whether your engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight spot behind Eton Natural History Museum.
Which fluid got in, how much, plus if it ran: each Eton call opens by asking exactly those, before any figure, never afterwards. Given those replies, the range shrinks to a single fixed number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, it is paid for on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Look at your policy whilst we're on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Eton and still beside your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Eton or anywhere within Berkshire.