Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Farnham
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing starts until your motor pulls it through. Caught before your engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Farnham. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Farnham
Do:
- Remove the keys, and that stops anyone switching the electrics on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which product, and about how much amount? Save the bottle or the receipt, and our engineers can see.
- Call right where you are. Say a GU9 7 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your car: your engine stays off.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the moment your ignition goes on, so keep the car off.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is pointless.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch up The Borough.
- Don't try to drain it yourself at the kerbside.
Moving the car away from the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Farnham forecourt you're on, the Texaco included. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It sinks, because it's denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its supply from. Simplest of all: one that got AdBlue in Wrecclesham last night and hasn't turned since. The liquid waits at the foot of the tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through if the motor starts, before any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it's cleared out. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting till morning in Farnham leaves things worse. Inside that tank only, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the BP, and the problem is diluted fuel. Harm just comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Upper Hale or the middle of Farnham.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits just in the tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to empty, anywhere your car has come to rest in Surrey.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Farnham?
Many cars place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and after dark the two can look identical. No one means it. A container bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the usual story.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. The refill is rushed outside St Andrew's Church of England Infant School, after your dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Borelli Yard. Another pattern: dim light, a pub car park by The Queen's Head, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
The least known vehicles get it most — hire cars, new cars, company ones, and the other car of a family with both fuel types. Wherever you are around Farnham or the remainder of Surrey, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Farnham?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed through your filter and pipework.
Maybe coming back from Garden of Remembrance, or part way across Farnham, your engine might go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or stall. Pull over when it is safe. Turn off. Keep the car off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M3, under 10 miles from Farnham, by the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, so driving towards Winchester, under 25 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Farnham to the car park by Mosaic Court. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has come to a stop. Spotted early, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Farnham
The car stays put, whether that is a street beside Clarendon Fine Art, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in Farnham, and the van travels to it. Three replies shape the work, so first we ask which fluid got in, roughly what quantity, and whether your motor has turned over.
Then the tank is cleared where the vehicle waits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is flushed all the way through because what remains won't flush out by itself. Testing the vehicle follows at the end, once clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter is cleaned or, where necessary, replaced. If the engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Last, the system is bled with new diesel. At that point our technicians fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space by the nearest station or a drive around Farnham. Before we leave, our technicians make sure it's running smoothly with fresh diesel in. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Farnham, for a moment
Farnham is a town situated in the South East of England, on the River Wey in Surrey, with a population of around 14224 people. Farnham sits at an elevation of 72 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Hale, Compton, and Hog Hatch. Farnham has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by detached homes. Farnham is located approximately 35 miles from London and 25 miles from Winchester, making it a commuter town with good connections to nearby cities.
AdBlue drains across Surrey, Farnham included
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Farnham also cover the locations round it, Hale, Compton and Hog Hatch among them, and most of Surrey beyond, across the GU postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or somewhere tricky to describe; phone and check.
A van that comes to you suits Farnham, a riverside town: there's no need to bring the vehicle to us, since our engineers empty it there, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Farnham?
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs are not the same. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind 3rd Farnham Scount Group HQ.
Before a quote, not afterwards, each enquiry from Farnham opens with three questions: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. Those answers shrink a range right down to a single number.
You get that price by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Farnham: still next to the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Farnham or anywhere in Surrey, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.