AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Eye Green? Keep It Switched Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just starts when your pump begins 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 around Eye Green. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Eye Green: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents anyone turning the electrics on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- Which fluid, and about what amount? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers can know.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting PE6 7, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Shifting the car even a short way is no reason to start your motor.
- Many diesels power their pump the moment your ignition goes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel will not thin it.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Crowland Road.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the kerbside.
Rolling your car away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Eye Green forecourt you're on, the Esso included. On that drive, your car remains exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, where it treats the gas. No part inside an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of that was intended to go that way.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the very spot the pickup draws from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it waits beneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Newborough last night and not started remains the straightforward one, provided no one turns the key.
Once it is drawn in, the damage comes in two forms. 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 running on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage by morning for a car parked around Eye Green. Only inside the tank, it stays the same. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a second kind of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is frequently worse than petrol
An issue of thinned fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol at the Sainsbury's. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside your tank, it causes none.
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. Whether the vehicle sits in Paston or the heart of Eye Green, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other error, and the flush matters for more. Why: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Anywhere across Cambridgeshire the car has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of any fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Eye Green: how it ends up there
Many motors put the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind one flap, and in dim light the two may look the same. No one intends it. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Eye CofE Primary School. Someone pours the container in at home, just off Guilsborough Road, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at Blue Boar, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a company motor, or the other motor in a home with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. Leave it switched off: that's the first step to the same slip, anywhere around Eye Green or the remainder of Cambridgeshire you happen to be.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Eye Green?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that is how far it has gone.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Eye Green Local Nature Reserve, perhaps, or part way across Eye Green. Once you safely can, pull over then turn it off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Exit the A1(M), under 10 miles from Eye Green, at the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Eye Green to the car park by Anglo Saxon Burial Ground is a very different job from a run towards Peterborough, under 5 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the cleaning where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has been run there is more of it. Spotted early, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Eye Green: what it takes
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Eye Green: a side street near Eye War Memorial, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers shape the job, and so before anything else we ask which fluid went in, about the amount, and whether your motor has run.
Then your tank is emptied where the car sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is cleaned right through because residue won't wash away by itself. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced if it must be. Then clean diesel, and then a test of your car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers turn up, provided the engine hasn't run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live filling station is no problem, and it is quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the system with new diesel comes last. At that point our engineers fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space at Peterborough or a drive in Eye Green. We check it runs properly on fresh diesel before leaving. As the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Eye Green itself
Eye Green is a village in Cambridgeshire, situated near the city of Peterborough and close to the villages of Eye and Dogsthorpe. Eye Green lies in a low-lying area of the Fens, with an elevation of around 8 metres, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Eye Green is located approximately 3.7 miles from Peterborough and about 76 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cambridgeshire, Eye Green included
AdBlue call-outs around Eye Green are passed to teams that serve the places around it — Eye, Newark as well as Dogsthorpe — and much of Cambridgeshire beyond, across PE postcodes. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a county line, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
No moving is needed. In Eye Green, a rural village, a mobile service fits: the car is drained on the spot, be it on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
Eye Green: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No flat price could be honest, because every job is different. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of your car, since an open drive is simpler for a technician to reach safely than a tight spot behind Eye Youth & Community Centre.
For that in mind, each call from Eye Green opens with the same trio — what got in, how much, whether the engine ran — before a figure. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
The quote is quoted on the call, before a van leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As the van is travelling, check your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Beside your car around Eye Green, right now?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Eye Green or anywhere in Cambridgeshire.