Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Friday Bridge
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your motor off then keep the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts when your pump begins drawing it. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully flushed where the car stands around Friday Bridge. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Friday Bridge
Things to do:
- Pocket the keys, which stops anyone turning the power on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting PE14 0, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the vehicle: your engine stays off.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant your ignition comes on, so leave the car off.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is pointless.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Well End.
- Beside the road, do not try emptying it on your own.
On a forecourt around Friday Bridge, whether it's the Morrisons or another one, ask the staff to help you push the car clear of the petrol pump. At your own driveway, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. From a separate tank it goes directly to the exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is how a car filled in South Bridge Field yesterday and not switched on remains the straightforward one, provided nobody turns your key.
Two kinds of damage follow 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, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting till morning in Friday Bridge makes it worse. In that tank only, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the Michael Wicks Garage, and this issue is thinned fuel. No damage comes as long as it stays put, blended into the diesel — only when your engine works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, because it does not burn. Crystals and corrosion remain after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of the diesel, and so watering it can't help. Hence the flush matters more, and turning the key "to see" costs more here than almost any other mistake — in Boyces Bridge or the centre of Friday Bridge equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on a fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere across Cambridgeshire the car sits.
Friday Bridge: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many vehicles place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two may look the same. Nobody means it. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill is hurried outside Friday Bridge Community Primary School, after your dash lit up with a warning as the kids were taken off. Close to Maltmas Drove, a driver tips a container in at home in the evening. One more pattern: darkness, the car park outside Chequers Inn, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a new motor, a company motor, or the spare motor of a home with both fuels — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever you're around Friday Bridge or the remainder of Cambridgeshire, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Friday Bridge, and the motor started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via your filter, along the lines, and — with any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
Expect rough running, smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Elm Play Area, say, or part way across Friday Bridge. Stop when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off rather than restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the Great North Road, under 25 miles from Friday Bridge, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That's why a hop across Friday Bridge to park beside clock tower and war memorial and a drive of under 25 miles for Ely are such different jobs. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out once the motor has been running. If it is caught early, long-term damage is very unusual.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Friday Bridge: what it takes
The vehicle stays put, whether that is a road near Friday Bridge Village Sign, a drive, a layby or a forecourt in Friday Bridge, and our van travels to it. What went in, about how much, and if the engine has turned over: we ask first, since those shape the work.
Right there, your tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through because what remains will not flush away by itself. A test of your vehicle follows at the end, after clean diesel is added and the filter is flushed or, if needed, swapped. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking space outside March or a driveway around Friday Bridge, that is where our engineers fire it up and you set off. Our engineers make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before we go. Our technicians do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never needs to go to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Friday Bridge itself
Friday Bridge is a small village in Cambridgeshire, situated in a low-lying area near the fenland landscape. Friday Bridge has a population of around 1113 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Friday Bridge is located approximately 15.8 miles from the city of Ely and 77.9 miles from London, making it a rural community with some distance from major urban centres.
AdBlue drains across Friday Bridge and Cambridgeshire
AdBlue call-outs in Friday Bridge go to teams that serve the towns around it — Begdale, Elm as well as Colletts Br — and most of Cambridgeshire beyond, across PE postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere tricky to pin down? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
Friday Bridge is a rural village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Friday Bridge: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. The price changes first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind St Mark (Friday Bridge Parish Church).
That is why each call from Friday Bridge starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Their answers narrow a range right down to a single figure.
Our quote is given during the call, before a van sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Alongside the vehicle in Friday Bridge, right now?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the most helpful step there is. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus whether the engine ran are all our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder throughout Cambridgeshire, Friday Bridge too.