Fir Toll: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that is how you begin if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system draws it in. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Fir Toll. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Fir Toll: the first few minutes
Do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting TN27 0, or simply the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Not to do:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant your ignition comes on, so leave the vehicle off.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's wasted.
- Even a short distance up Station Road is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Moving your vehicle away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Fir Toll forecourt you are on, the Esso included. At home, the car remains exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a dedicated reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what the engine lets out. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps apart instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in The Pinnock overnight and hasn't turned since. The liquid sits at the base of your tank, undrawn — but it would be the first thing through if the engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. 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, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting till morning in Fir Toll leaves things worse. Inside that tank only, time costs nothing. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel flowing past them, and so the water part damages them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Charing Motors Ltd.'s forecourt makes the fuel thin — that's the whole problem. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in the tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it can't just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. 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 your car is in Mundy Bois or the middle of Fir Toll.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If your motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Kent the vehicle is standing.
Fir Toll: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — may appear the same. No one means it; many layouts allow it. It usually occurs at home, from a container grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the filling station.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Pluckley Church of England Primary School the refill is hurried. A driver tips the container in outside their house, just off Malmains Road, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at Black Horse, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Fir Toll or the remainder of Kent, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Fir Toll?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, after passing via the filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — coming back from The Forest, perhaps, or part way across Fir Toll. No starting it again to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch it off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Fir Toll sits under 3 miles from the M20; if you were on it, leave at the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than driving on.
Hopping across Fir Toll to the car park by St Nicholas Church is one thing; driving towards Canterbury, under 25 miles away, is another, because each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the motor has been started. When it is spotted quickly, lasting damage is very rare.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Fir Toll: what it takes
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Fir Toll: a side street close to Moat, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work rests on three replies, and our technicians get before all else — what got in, the quantity, and whether your engine has run.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. Your system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of your car comes at the end, after fresh diesel is added and your filter is flushed or, if needed, swapped. Engine not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Last, the system is bled with new 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 Fir Toll or in a bay by Pluckley. Before we go, our technicians check it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. Because the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Fir Toll
Fir Toll is a small hamlet in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 57 metres, and is located near the villages of Pluckley Thorne and Pluckley. Fir Toll lies within the wider countryside of the South East region, approximately 44.6 miles from London and 16.2 miles from the city of Canterbury. Fir Toll is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting.
AdBlue drains around Fir Toll and across Kent
Our teams that answer AdBlue calls in Fir Toll also cover the places round it, Pluckley Thorne, Pluckley and Chambers Green among them, and most of Kent beyond, across the TN postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess if you are close to a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
No towing is needed. In Fir Toll, a rural hamlet, a mobile service works: your car is emptied on the spot, be it in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Fir Toll: the cost of fixing it
Not one flat price would be fair, since every job differs. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the car, because an open driveway is easier for our van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Roman Bath House.
What was put in, what quantity, and if the engine ran: every Fir Toll call opens by asking precisely those, before a figure, not afterwards. Their answers narrow the range right down to a single number.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Still next to the car around Fir Toll?
Then, do nothing — that is the best step available. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Fir Toll or anywhere in Kent.