AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Eye? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The trouble begins once it's pulled through the pump — it will not burn, and it will not combine with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully purged where your car stands in Eye. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Eye, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Things to do:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, pull your keys out.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, and so don't bin it away.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting PE6 7, or just the name of a street close by, so call from the spot.
Things not to do:
- Moving your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Many diesels power their pump the instant your ignition comes on, and so leave the car off.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it's wasted.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch up Moores Lane.
- Emptying that tank yourself by the road isn't worth trying.
At a forecourt around Eye, whether it's the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the car away from the pump. At your own drive, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a dedicated tank it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the engine lets out. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools underneath it — the very place the pickup draws from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Eastfield last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Once it's drawn in, the damage comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and tiny channels; and, because it attacks some metals, each part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it remains inside. Overnight, a vehicle sitting around Eye with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it is only inside the tank, it doesn't. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing past them, so the water content damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Sainsbury's's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that's the main problem. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in that tank, it does nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Whether the vehicle is in Newborough or the centre of Eye, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not stay blended, and so watering it down fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
As with petrol, there's good news. Anywhere in Cambridgeshire your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
Eye: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts invite it. Mostly it is never the filling station: someone buys a bottle heading home and tips it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Eye CofE Primary School. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway near Eyebury Road. One more version: dim light, the car park by Blue Boar, and a driver using that flap the first time.
Rented motors, new motors, fleet motors, or the spare car in a family with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it the most. Keep it off: that's the first step to an identical slip, anywhere in Eye or the remainder of Cambridgeshire you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Eye, and your engine started?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. Through the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — coming back from School Garden, say, or part way across Eye. Once safe, pull over and turn everything off — with no turning it on again to see. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the A1(M), under 10 miles from Eye, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Hopping across Eye to the car park by St Matthew's Church is one thing; driving towards Peterborough, under 5 miles away, is another, since each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Roughly 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 flush after the engine has been running. If it's spotted early, lasting damage is very unusual.
Eye: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
The car stays put, whether that's a street beside Eye Library, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt in Eye, and our van travels to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether your motor has run, since those replies decide the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one after your tank is drained, on the spot. What remains from AdBlue won't flush away by itself, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts much more with urea than for petrol. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. About half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when the engine has not run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no issue, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Lastly, the fuel system is bled with clean diesel. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Eye or in a bay by Peterborough. Our engineers make sure it runs properly on new diesel before leaving. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never has to be taken to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Eye and where it is
Eye is a village in Cambridgeshire, situated near the city of Peterborough and close to the neighbouring settlements of Eye Green and Dogsthorpe. Eye sits in a low-lying area of the Fens, with an elevation of around 11 metres, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Eye is located approximately 3.5 miles from Peterborough and about 76 miles from London, making it a commuter base for those working in the nearby city.
AdBlue drains across Eye and Cambridgeshire
Eye Green, Newark and Dogsthorpe are among the towns near Eye that the same teams serve, along with most of Cambridgeshire further out, over the PE postcode area. Close to a boundary, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats assuming, and so phone.
Wherever the vehicle sits — your drive at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; which suits Eye, a rural village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Eye: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open drive is easier for a van to reach safely than a tight space behind Eye Youth & Community Centre.
That's why each call from Eye starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it has run. With those replies, the range narrows to a single fixed number.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Eye: still alongside your car?
Not touching your car is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Eye or anywhere in Cambridgeshire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran.