AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Furnace? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep the engine off — and your ignition as well. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only comes once the pump starts pulling it. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly flushed where your car sits around Furnace. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Furnace
Do:
- Pull your keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazard lights on.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and about how much, save the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting SA16 0, or whatever street is nearest, and our van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you are.
Never do these:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance up Dwynant is too far to drive the car.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll the vehicle away from the island if you are at a forecourt around Furnace, whether it's the Chivers Corner or somewhere else. At home, the car stays exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. From a separate tank it is fed straight to your exhaust, treating what your engine emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, and that is why a car filled in Pembrey last night and never started remains the straightforward one, as long as no one turns the key.
After it's pulled in, the harm takes two forms. 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 labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. A car left sitting in Furnace with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Then there is the water: it offers no protection to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more serious than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the Murco, and this issue is diluted fuel. Mixed through the diesel and sitting unused, it is no threat at that stage; using the engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Dyfatty or the middle of Furnace.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue waits only in your tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to empty, wherever the vehicle has come to rest in Carmarthenshire.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Furnace
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles waits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is never the filling station: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside the local primary school. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive near Furnace Road. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up your vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park by Hope & Anchor.
It takes place most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever in Carmarthenshire, Furnace as well, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Furnace?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via your filter, along the lines, and — given any running — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's where it travels.
Maybe returning from Furnace Fields, or midway across Furnace, your engine may go lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or cut out. No starting it again to check: pull over once safe, then switch everything off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Exit the M4, under 10 miles from Furnace, at the first junction and park somewhere safe, not carrying on.
Hopping across Furnace to the car park by Burry Port Branch Library is one thing; heading for Swansea, under 15 miles away, is something else, because every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. Caught soon, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
Furnace: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Furnace: a side street near Amelia Earhart, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if your engine has run, since those replies settle the work.
Next, emptying the tank right there removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. A full flush matters much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since residue won't clear away by itself. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
The final step is to prime the system on new diesel. You head off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Furnace or in a bay at Pembrey & Burry Port. The check before our technicians head off is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. No workshop is required at any point, with the whole job done then and there. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Furnace
Furnace is a small suburban area in Carmarthenshire, situated on the coast of Wales at an elevation of around 9 metres. Furnace lies near the communities of Achddu, Graig, and Burry Port, and is approximately 14.5 miles from Swansea. Furnace has a population of around 2409 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Furnace is part of the wider coastal area of Carmarthenshire, with its residents being around 177.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Furnace and Carmarthenshire
Over the SA postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs around Furnace reach most of Carmarthenshire too, Achddu, Graig and Burry Port included. Guessing won't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
A mobile service suits Furnace, a residential suburb: there's no need to take the car to us, since our technicians empty it on the spot, on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Furnace?
Not one flat figure could be honest, since every job is different. What changes the price is, first, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Pembrey Memorial Community Centre.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, and whether the engine ran: each Furnace call opens with exactly those, before a quote, never afterwards. Those answers shrink a range right down to a single figure.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Still next to your car around Furnace?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to leave it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus whether the engine ran are everything our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout Carmarthenshire, Furnace too.