AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Fox Lane? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep the motor off — and the ignition as well. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm happens until the engine sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Fox Lane, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your motor has run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Fox Lane, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do these:
- Take your keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call just where you are. Quote a GU14 9 postcode or the closest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Don't:
- Moving your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance along Coldharbour Lane is too far to drive the car.
- By the road, do not try emptying it yourself.
The attendants on duty at any Fox Lane forecourt — the Sainsbury's included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. At your own driveway, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Nothing inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and no part of that was intended to travel that way.
It doesn't blend. Once it is poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. It drops, because it is heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its fuel from. Simplest of all: one that got AdBlue in West Heath last night and hasn't been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of your tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through if your motor runs, before any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. 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, and so it keeps working on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning in Fox Lane leaves it worse. In your tank only, time costs nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
A fault of thinned fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol at the BP. Blended into the diesel and left unused, it is no threat at that stage; running the engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits back out — and the next tankful won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of Fox Lane or out in Farnborough Green, costs more than almost any other mistake.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits only in your tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, wherever the vehicle has come to rest across Hampshire.
Fox Lane: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — may look the same. Nobody intends it; many layouts invite it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside The Ferns Primary Academy. After work, a bottle goes in on a driveway close to Elm Tree Walk. Otherwise, after dark outside The Fox, your vehicle is topped up by someone using that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company vehicle, or the spare motor of a home with one of each fuels — the vehicles people know the least. Leave it off: that's the first response to an identical slip, anywhere in Fox Lane or the remainder of Hampshire you happen to be.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Fox Lane, and the engine started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. The filter and lines have had it pulled along, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
You may notice your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Moor Road Recreation Ground or halfway across Fox Lane. No starting it again to check: stop when it is safe, then turn it off. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M3, under a mile from Fox Lane, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Hopping across Fox Lane to the car park by All Saints is one matter; heading for Winchester, under 50 miles away, is something else, since each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Approximately 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 clean out after your engine has been started. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it is caught early.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Fox Lane: what it takes
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that is a street near Cherrywood Road, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt around Fox Lane, and the van travels to it. Three replies shape the work, so before anything else our engineers ask what went in, roughly what quantity, plus if your motor has turned over.
Right there, that tank is then emptied, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. A full flush matters much more after AdBlue than after petrol, since residue will not wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to bleed your system on fresh diesel. Then our engineers start the car and you set off, whether from a parking space at Frimley or a drive around Fox Lane. The test before our technicians head off is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. As the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Fox Lane and where it is
Fox Lane is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Hampshire, with an elevation of 66 metres. Fox Lane lies approximately 30.9 miles from London and 29 miles from the city of Winchester, placing it within the wider South East England region. Fox Lane has a population of around 5328 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Fox Lane is near other local places such as Hawley Lane, Hawley, and Cove.
Fox Lane and Hampshire: AdBlue drains across the area
The teams that answer AdBlue calls in Fox Lane also cover the places about it, Hawley Lane, Hawley and Cove among them, and most of Hampshire beyond, across the GU postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
A van that comes to you fits Fox Lane, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring your car to us, since we empty it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Fox Lane?
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of your car, because an open driveway is easier for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Church of the Good Shepherd.
Which fluid was put in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Fox Lane call opens with exactly that, before a quote, never afterwards. Once they are known, a range turns into a single firm number.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As the van is on the way, check your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Still alongside the vehicle around Fox Lane?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus whether the engine ran are all we need. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Hampshire, Fox Lane too.