Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Field
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave the engine off and leave your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Field, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has been run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps right now, Field: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Remove the keys, which prevents someone switching the power on.
- Near moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Which product, and about how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and we will see.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting BA4 4, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Not to do:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the instant your ignition goes on, and so keep it off.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, and so it's pointless.
- Even a short distance up Four Acres is too far to drive the car.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself by the kerbside.
The attendants on duty at any Field forecourt — the Tesco included — will normally help pushing it clear if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. Nothing inside a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and no part of it was meant to travel that way.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays separate rather than blending — quite different from fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Cannards Grave overnight and has not turned since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of your tank, undrawn — but it would be first through if the engine runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
It does two kinds of damage from there. It attacks some metals used in fuel systems, working on whatever it touches until it is cleared from the system. And when the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow channels. A car left standing around Field with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a second kind of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
A fault of thinned fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Murco. Damage just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside the tank, it does none.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. It can't just be run through, because it does not burn. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits again — and the following tankful will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Field or out in Bowlish, costs more than nearly any other error.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Somerset the car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Field: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside St Paul's Church of England VC Junior School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone refills your car. After work, a container is tipped in on a driveway near Webber Road. Otherwise, after dark outside Charton Inn, the vehicle gets topped up by a driver using that flap for the first time.
The least known cars get it most — rentals, new ones, fleet cars, and the other vehicle in a home with one of each fuels. Wherever you are around Field or the rest of Somerset, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Field, and the engine started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. Via the filter, along the lines, and — given any running — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it travels.
Perhaps coming back from Collett Park, or midway across Field, the engine might go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or stall. No starting it again to test: stop once it is safe, then switch it off. Each start pulls more of it through.
Field sits under 25 miles from the M5; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and stop safely rather than driving on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system, and so heading for Wells, under 5 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Field to the car park by Saint Michael's Catholic Church. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the car has stopped, and once the engine has been run there is more of it. Noticed soon, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
Field: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped in Field: a side street close to Shepton Mallet Lesure Centre, 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 the motor has run.
Then that tank is cleared where the car waits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Residue from AdBlue will not wash out unaided, so the whole system gets a full flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. After that, your filter: cleaned, or changed if it must be. Then clean diesel, and then a test of the car. If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
Priming the system with new diesel comes last. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway around Field or in a space at Castle Cary. Our technicians confirm it runs properly on fresh diesel before we leave. No garage is required at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Field, briefly
Field is a suburban area in Somerset, situated near the River Sheppey and close to the city of Wells. Field sits at an elevation of 151 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Field is located near several other places, including Shepton Mallet, Charlton, and West Shepton, and is around 4.8 miles from Wells. Field has a population of approximately 4754 residents.
Field and Somerset: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue call-outs in Field also cover the spots round it, Shepton Mallet, Charlton and West Shepton among them, and most of Somerset beyond, across the BA postcode area. Close to a border, or anywhere awkward to explain? Checking is better than assuming, so ring.
No moving is needed. In Field, a residential suburb, a mobile service works: the car is drained on the spot, be it in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Field?
Since the jobs differ, a single figure would not be honest. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Paul Street Community Centre.
That's why each call from Field starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. With them, the range narrows to a single fixed number.
The price is given on the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Beside the car in Field, still?
Then, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Field or wherever within Somerset, once you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran.