AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Gerlan? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your engine off then leave your ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Gerlan, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the engine has run. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Gerlan: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and roughly how much, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring right where you are. Say a LL57 3 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your vehicle: your motor stays off.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not weaken it.
- Even a short way down Treflys Street is too far to drive it.
- Beside the road, do not attempt draining it yourself.
Ask the attendants to help you move the car away from the island if you are on a forecourt around Gerlan, whether it's the EG Garages or elsewhere. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate tank it is fed straight to your exhaust, treating what the engine emits. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
It doesn't blend. Once it's poured into the tank, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in Penybryn overnight and has not been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — but it will be first through once the motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
After it is drawn in, the harm comes in 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, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting overnight around Gerlan leaves it worse. Inside your tank only, waiting costs nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Calor's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the whole fault. Mixed into the diesel and sitting unused, it is no threat for now; running your engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It can't just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Crystals and corrosion stay after the next tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of the diesel, so thinning it can't work. Hence the flush counts so much, and trying the engine "to see" costs more here than almost any other slip — in Cilfodan or the centre of Gerlan equally.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the simplest job on a fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue remains in there — wherever around Gwynedd the vehicle sits.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Gerlan?
Many vehicles place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap, and after dark the two may look identical. Nobody intends it. Usually it is not the forecourt: someone buys a container driving home and tips it in at home.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. The refill gets rushed outside the local primary school, after your dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Abercaseg Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park at Douglas Arms, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Gerlan or the rest of Gwynedd, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Gerlan?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. The filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and some running carries it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — returning from Coed Bryn-Meurig, perhaps, or midway across Gerlan. Once you safely can, pull over then turn everything off — with no turning it on again to see. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the Moreton Spur, under 50 miles from Gerlan, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
Mileage matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, and so heading towards Bangor, under 5 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Gerlan to the car park by Christ Church. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the car has stopped, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it is spotted soon.
Gerlan: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The car stays put, whether that is a road near Jerusalem, a driveway, a layby or a filling station around Gerlan, and the van comes to it. Before anything else we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if the motor has run, since those answers decide this work.
Next, emptying the tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since what remains will not flush out unaided. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. About half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where the engine hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
The last step is to prime your system on fresh diesel. After that our engineers start the engine and you set off, whether from a parking space at Bangor (Gwynedd) or a driveway around Gerlan. The test before we leave is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Gerlan itself
Gerlan is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Gwynedd, Wales, with an elevation of 189 metres. Gerlan lies close to the city of Bangor, approximately 4.7 miles away, and is near other local places such as Bontuchaf, Pant, and Gwernydd. Gerlan has a population of around 1935 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Gerlan is located about 201.8 miles from London, in a scenic part of northwest Wales.
AdBlue drains around Gerlan and across Gwynedd
AdBlue call-outs in Gerlan go to teams that cover the places around it — Bontuchaf, Pant as well as Gwernydd — and most of Gwynedd beyond, throughout LL postcodes. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Wherever your vehicle sits — your drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits Gerlan, a residential suburb, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Gerlan: the cost of fixing it
Every job differs, and so no single price is honest. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, since an open driveway is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight space behind War Memorial.
That is why each call from Gerlan starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. Those replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Still next to the vehicle around Gerlan?
Right now, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Gerlan or anywhere in Gwynedd.