Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Funtley
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm starts until your motor pulls it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Funtley, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before the engine has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Funtley, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
Do:
- Take the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting PO17 5, or whatever street is closest, and our van reaches you straight — so ring wherever you are.
Things not to do:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets the pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short distance along Funtley Lane.
- Draining your tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
The staff on duty at any Funtley forecourt — the Texaco among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. A fuel pump isn't made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Crockerhill last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
Two kinds of harm come 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 labouring on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a car parked around Funtley with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's just in the tank, it doesn't. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Sainsbury's, and this problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is inside that tank it does no harm; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether your car is in Heathfield or the middle of Funtley.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue stays in there — wherever across Hampshire your vehicle sits.
Funtley: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, now and then under a single flap — may look the same. No one intends it; plenty of layouts invite it. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Orchard Lea Junior School the refill is rushed. A driver pours the bottle in at home, just off Lakeside, as the day ends. Another pattern: dim light, the car park by The Miners Arms, and someone using that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the other vehicle of a home with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers know least. Wherever around Hampshire, Funtley included, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it switched off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Funtley, and the motor started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Maybe coming back from Great Beamond Coppice, or midway across Funtley, the motor may run rough, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or cut out. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M27, under a mile from Funtley, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Hopping across Funtley to the car park by Al Mahdi Centre is one thing; driving for Portsmouth, under 10 miles away, is something else, since each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once the engine has been started, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. When it's caught early, permanent damage is very uncommon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Funtley
A road beside Hill Park Baptist Church, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: wherever your car has stopped around Funtley, our technicians travel to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether your engine has been run, because those replies determine the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one when the tank is emptied, right there. What remains from AdBlue will not flush away by itself, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then the car is tested. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where your engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Last, the system is bled with clean diesel. After that we start the engine and you head off, whether from a parking bay at Fareham or a drive around Funtley. The test before our technicians leave is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Funtley itself
Funtley is a small village in Hampshire, situated near the coast and approximately 7 miles north of Portsmouth. Funtley has a population of around 535 people and is characterised by detached housing. Funtley sits at a relatively low elevation of 23 metres, close to nearby places such as Knowle and Hill Park. Funtley is located within the South East region of England, about 64 miles south-west of London.
AdBlue drains across Hampshire, Funtley included
Throughout the PO postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Funtley serve much of Hampshire as well, Knowle, Hill Park and Lee Ground among them. Assuming won't help close to a county line or somewhere tricky to pin down; ring and check.
A van that comes to you suits Funtley, a coastal village: you have no need to bring the car to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Funtley: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs vary, a single price wouldn't be fair. Three things change the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind Knowle Village Hall.
Ahead of any figure, not after, each enquiry from Funtley begins with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and whether it ran. Once those are answered, a range turns into one fixed number.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the price by phone. And you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Next to your car in Funtley, still?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Funtley or anywhere around Hampshire.