AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Gants Hill? Keep It Switched Off
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system draws it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits in Gants Hill. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Gants Hill: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents anyone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly how much, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- The van locates you fastest with a postcode starting IG2 6, or simply the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Do not:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the moment the ignition comes on, so leave it off.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it is wasted.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up Perth Road.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll your car off the island if you're at a forecourt in Gants Hill, whether it's the K&S Fuel Limited or somewhere else. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a separate reservoir it is fed directly to your exhaust, treating what the engine lets out. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the very place the intake sucks from. When the system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Barkingside yesterday and never switched on stays the simple one, as long as nobody touches the key.
Once it is drawn in, the harm takes two forms. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. A vehicle left standing in Gants Hill with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector depend on diesel flowing through them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the K&S Fuels Limited, and the problem is thinned fuel. Damage just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left in the tank, it causes none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle is in Seven Kings or the centre of Gants Hill, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue stays in there — anywhere around Greater London your vehicle sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Gants Hill: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap — can appear the same. Nobody intends it; many designs allow it. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Gearies Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Parham Drive. Otherwise, after dark outside King George V, the vehicle gets refilled by someone using that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the other vehicle of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people use the least. Wherever you're around Gants Hill or the remainder of Greater London, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Gants Hill: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. It has been drawn through the filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Kitchen Garden, or midway across Gants Hill, the motor might run rough, smoke, lose power, light up your dash or cut out. Once you safely can, stop then switch everything off — without turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M11, under 3 miles from Gants Hill, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Mileage matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further into your system, so heading for London, under 10 miles away, makes a much bigger job than hopping across Gants Hill to the car park by The Vortex. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to clean out once the engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it's caught early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Gants Hill
Wherever it has stopped around Gants Hill — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a road beside Head of Canal Grotto — the van comes to the vehicle. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, about how much, and whether the motor has run, because those answers determine the work.
Then the tank is emptied where your car stands, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Testing your car follows at the end, after fresh diesel is added and your filter gets cleaned or, if needed, swapped. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where the motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Lastly, your system is bled with clean diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you set off from where the car is parked, outside Ilford or on a drive around Gants Hill. We confirm it runs properly on fresh diesel before we go. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never has to go to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Gants Hill
Gants Hill is a suburban area in northeast London, situated near the River Roding at an elevation of around 24 metres. Gants Hill lies approximately 9.7 miles from central London and is close to nearby places such as Cranbrook, Redbridge, and Newbury Park. Gants Hill has a population of around 13246 people and is characterised by predominantly terraced housing.
AdBlue drains across Gants Hill and Greater London
Cranbrook, Redbridge and Newbury Park are among the towns near Gants Hill that the same teams serve, along with much of Greater London further out, over the IG postcode area. Phone and check rather than guess if you're by a county line, or anywhere tricky to explain.
A van that comes to you suits Gants Hill, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the car to us, because we empty it there, on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Gants Hill
No single figure would be fair, since each job is different. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Gants Hill Library.
Which fluid was put in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Gants Hill call begins by asking exactly those, before any figure, never after. Their answers narrow the range right down to a single number.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, it is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. While the van is on the way, check your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Gants Hill: still beside the car?
Not touching the car is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if the engine ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder throughout Greater London, Gants Hill too.