Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Fraddon
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your engine. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. The harm starts once it is sucked through the pump — it won't ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. In Fraddon, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Fraddon, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
Things to do:
- Remove the keys, which prevents someone turning the power on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly how much, save the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a TR9 6 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Don't:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to reposition the vehicle.
- Turning your key to ignition alone starts the pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not weaken it.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance up Chapel Road.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the roadside.
At a forecourt in Fraddon, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the staff to help you push your car clear of the pump. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. Heavier than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the very place the intake sucks from. When the system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is how a vehicle topped up in Toldish last night and never started remains the straightforward one, as long as nobody touches the key.
After it is sucked in, the damage takes two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and narrow passages; meanwhile, because it eats at certain metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays in there. If the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting till morning in Fraddon makes things worse. Inside your tank alone, waiting does nothing. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second kind of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. Harm only comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in your tank, it causes none.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits back from the diesel, and so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip — in Trevarren or the centre of Fraddon equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. Wherever around Cornwall the vehicle has come to rest, an unrun engine means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Fraddon?
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap, and mixing them up is easy after dark. A bottle bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical story.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside Indian Queens Primary School, because the dash lit up with a warning while the kids were dropped off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Grovewood Court. Or someone new to that flap refills the car in dim light, stopped in the car park by Blue Anchor Inn.
Rented vehicles, new cars, fleet motors, or the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it most. Leave it switched off: that's the first step to an identical slip, wherever around Fraddon or the remainder of Cornwall you are.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Fraddon?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed via the filter and lines.
You may see the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Fraddon Millennium Green or halfway across Fraddon. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M5, over 50 miles from Fraddon, at the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Hopping across Fraddon to the car park by Fraddon Methodist Church is one thing; driving for Truro, under 15 miles away, is something else, since each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once your engine has been running. Caught quickly, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Fraddon
A street beside Indian Queens Immanuel Church, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: wherever your car has stopped around Fraddon, our technicians travel to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether your engine has been run, because those replies determine the work.
Then that tank is cleared where your car stands, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is flushed all the way through because residue will not flush out by itself. A test of the car follows last, after clean diesel is added and your filter gets cleaned or, where necessary, replaced. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes last. After that our engineers start it and you set off, whether from a parking bay at St Columb Road or a driveway around Fraddon. We confirm it runs smoothly on fresh diesel before leaving. As the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Fraddon and where it is
Fraddon is a village in Cornwall, situated inland at an elevation of 136 metres, approximately 10 miles from the city of Truro. Fraddon is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its relatively rural setting. Fraddon lies near several other small settlements, including Penhale, St Columb Road, and Indian Queens, and is home to around 1327 people.
AdBlue drains around Fraddon and across Cornwall
AdBlue call-outs around Fraddon go to teams that serve the places near it — Penhale, St Columb Road plus Indian Queens — and most of Cornwall further out, throughout TR postcodes. Close to a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
No moving is needed. In Fraddon, a rural village, a mobile service works: your car is emptied on the spot, whether on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Fraddon
Each job differs, so not one fixed quote would be honest. The price changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Community Centre at Indian Queens Pit.
Ahead of any quote, not after, every enquiry from Fraddon begins with the same three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and if it ran. Those replies narrow a range down to a single number.
Before a van heads out, you are told the price on the phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Fraddon: still alongside your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Fraddon or anywhere within Cornwall, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.