AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Gold Street? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your engine off then leave the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Being water-based, it won't burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble only comes when the pump begins drawing it. In Gold Street, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Gold Street
To do:
- Pocket your keys, and that stops someone turning the power on.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere near moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Our van locates you fastest with a postcode starting DA12 3, or just the name of a street nearby, so call from the spot.
Don't do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your vehicle: the motor remains off.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Even a short way along Gold Street is too far to drive the car.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself at the kerbside.
At a forecourt in Gold Street, whether it's the Esso or another one, ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the pump. At your own drive, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, and there it treats the gas. No part in an injection pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
It does not blend. Once it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like fuel. It sinks, since it's denser than diesel, and pools down where the pickup takes its supply from. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Henley Street yesterday evening and left unstarted is the simple one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though once your motor turns, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
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 is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. A vehicle left standing around Gold Street with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Shell's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that's the whole problem. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's inside the tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running your motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the following fill, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, and so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush matters more, and trying the engine "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip — in Cobham or the heart of Gold Street alike.
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 stays in it — wherever across Kent your car sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Gold Street: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under a single flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Cobham Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone tops up your car. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, right off , as the day ends. Else, after dark outside The Railway Inn, your vehicle is refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a company motor, or the spare motor of a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people know the least. Keep it off: that is the first response to the same mistake, anywhere in Gold Street or the rest of Kent you are.
Gold Street: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and any running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Camer Park, say, or part way across Gold Street. Stop when safe. Switch off. Leave it off instead of testing it again. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M2, under 3 miles from Gold Street, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Gold Street to the car park by St Mary's Room, Sole Street is a very different job from a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been run. Permanent damage is very unusual if it's noticed early.
Gold Street: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The vehicle remains put, whether that is a road near St Mary Magdalene, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt in Gold Street, and the van travels to it. Three replies decide the job, and so before anything else we ask what got in, about the amount, and if your engine has run.
Next, draining your tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because residue will not wash out by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers arrive, if the motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to prime your system on fresh diesel. After that our technicians fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space by Sole Street or a drive in Gold Street. It's tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs properly before our technicians head off. No garage is needed at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Gold Street, for a moment
Gold Street is a small hamlet in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 98 metres, and is located near the villages of Sole Street and Camer. Gold Street comprises predominantly detached housing and has a population of around 665 residents. Gold Street is positioned approximately 17.6 miles from Southend-on-Sea and 23.6 miles from London, placing it within the wider South East region. Gold Street remains a quiet rural community with a scattered pattern of homes and farms.
Gold Street and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the DA postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs in Gold Street serve most of Kent as well, Sole Street, Round Street and Camer included. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A van that comes to you suits Gold Street, a rural hamlet: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since we drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Gold Street: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Meadow Rooms.
That is why each call from Gold Street starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Given those replies, the range narrows to a single firm figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told our quote by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Still next to the vehicle in Gold Street?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best move open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if the engine ran are all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Kent, Gold Street too.