Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Fawley
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your engine off then leave the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The trouble begins once it's pulled through the pump — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. In Fawley, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Fawley, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Things to do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting SO45 1, or just the name of a street close by, so phone from the car.
Things not to do:
- Moving the car just a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel will not thin it.
- Even a short distance down The Square is too far to drive it.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
Rolling your car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Fawley forecourt you're on, the Esso or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. No part inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and no part of it was meant to travel that way.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays apart instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the same spot the intake sucks from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Blackfield last night and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue sits at the base of that tank, untouched — though it would be the first thing through once the motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
After it's pulled in, the harm 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 is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps labouring on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting overnight around Fawley makes things worse. Inside that tank alone, waiting costs nothing. And there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that need it most — the injection pump and every injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a problem of thin fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside that tank, it does none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Ower or the middle of Fawley.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever around Hampshire the car has come to rest, an unrun motor means the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the simplest part of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Fawley: how it ends up there
Many cars put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, now and then under one flap, and after dark the two may look the same. No one intends it. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Fawley Infant School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, a parent tops up the car. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a driveway near School Road. One more version: dim light, a pub car park outside Falcon Hotel, and someone using that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Fawley or the rest of Hampshire, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Fawley: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's how far it has gone.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard warnings or stalling: any might appear, maybe part way across Fawley or coming back from Rye Paddock Copse. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M27, under 5 miles from Fawley, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to park — not carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Fawley to the car park by All Saints' Church is a very different job from a run towards Southampton, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to rinse out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Spotted soon, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Fawley
A street by Gang Warily, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest around Fawley, our technicians travel to it. Which fluid was put in, roughly the quantity, plus whether your motor has been run: our engineers ask first, because those decide the work.
Next, draining your tank right there takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. Your system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers turn up, if your motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, by Hamble or on a driveway around Fawley. The test before we leave is that it runs properly on new diesel. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. Afterwards, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Fawley itself
Fawley is a small coastal village in Hampshire, situated near the New Forest and looking out over Southampton Water. Fawley sits at an elevation of around 33 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Fawley is close to nearby places such as Ashlett, Stonehills, and Sprats Down, and is located approximately 5.9 miles from Southampton. Fawley has a population of around 924 residents.
AdBlue drains across Fawley and Hampshire
The vans that answer AdBlue calls around Fawley also cover the places round it, Ashlett, Stonehills and Sprats Down among them, and most of Hampshire beyond, across the SO postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
Fawley is a coastal village, and an on-site 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, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Fawley: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be fair, because every job differs. Three things change the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind Blackfield Baptist Church.
For that reason, each enquiry from Fawley opens by asking the identical trio — what went in, what quantity, if the engine ran — ahead of any figure. When those are known, a range becomes a single firm figure.
The price is given during the call, before a van leaves; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
In Fawley and still alongside the car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Fawley or anywhere around Hampshire.