Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gibraltar
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and the ignition as well. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system draws it in. Caught before the motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Gibraltar. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Gibraltar, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Things to do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly how much, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting MK43 9, or simply the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Never:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the instant your ignition comes on, and so leave the vehicle off.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel won't weaken it.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short distance along Wood End Lane.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it on your own.
On a forecourt around Gibraltar, whether it is the BP or another one, ask the staff to help you push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Not one side fits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't deal with urea.
It does not blend. After it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A motor topped up on a drive in Mount Pleasant yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but once your engine runs, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What remains when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's flushed out. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning around Gibraltar makes things worse. Inside that tank only, waiting does nothing. And there's the water: it brings no protection to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Murco, and the problem is thinned fuel. No harm comes while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only when the motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Kempston Church End or the middle of Gibraltar.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Bedfordshire the car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Gibraltar: how it ends up there
Many vehicles place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two can look identical. Nobody means it. Usually it's never the filling station: a driver buys a container driving home and tips it in at home.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is rushed outside Kempston Rural Primary School, after your dash flashed with a warning while the kids were dropped off. Someone tips the container in at home, just off Home Road, as the day ends. One more pattern: dim light, the car park by The Cross Keys and Country Pub, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a fleet car, or the other vehicle in a family with both fuels — the cars people use the least. Anywhere around Bedfordshire, Gibraltar as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first response: keep it switched off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Gibraltar?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, after passing via the filter and lines.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from The Kill, perhaps, or part way across Gibraltar. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the car off instead of testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M1, under 10 miles from Gibraltar, by the first junction and park somewhere safe, not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Gibraltar to the car park by Wootton Library is a very different job from a run towards Milton Keynes, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
Once your engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Permanent damage is very rare when it's caught quickly.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Gibraltar
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a road near All Saints Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station in Gibraltar, and the van travels to it. Before anything else we ask what got in, about how much, and whether the motor has been run, because those replies settle the work.
Next, draining that tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. A careful flush counts far more after AdBlue than with petrol, because residue will not wash away on its own. A test of the vehicle follows last, once clean diesel is added and the fuel filter gets flushed or, if necessary, replaced. Not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, by Kempston Hardwick or on a driveway around Gibraltar. Before we go, our engineers make sure it is running correctly with clean diesel in. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Gibraltar itself
Gibraltar is a small village in Bedfordshire, situated inland at an elevation of 41 metres, approximately 45 miles north of London. Gibraltar lies near the larger town of Milton Keynes, with nearby villages including Green End, Keeley Green, and Pilgrims Rest. Gibraltar has a population of around 573 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
AdBlue drains around Gibraltar and across Bedfordshire
Throughout the MK postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs around Gibraltar reach most of Bedfordshire too, Green End, Keeley Green and Pilgrims Rest among them. Ring and ask rather than guess if you are by a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Wherever the car sits — a driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Gibraltar, a rural village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Gibraltar
Every job differs, so no fixed quote would be fair. What changes the price is, firstly, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind The Kempston Centre.
Ahead of a quote, never after, every call from Gibraltar opens with three checks: the fuel, the quantity, and whether the engine ran. Their answers shrink the range right down to one number.
You get that price on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
Still beside the car in Gibraltar?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Gibraltar or wherever in Bedfordshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran.