Great Leighs: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the engine off — and the ignition too. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. As it is water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage only comes once your pump starts drawing it. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Great Leighs. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Great Leighs, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly what volume? Save the bottle or the receipt, and we can know.
- Ring right where you are. Say a CM3 1 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Shifting the car even a few yards is no reason to start your motor.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't thin it.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch along Main Road.
- Draining your tank yourself beside the road is not one to try.
Ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the pumps if you're at a forecourt around Great Leighs, whether it's the Tesco or elsewhere. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. No part in an injection pump is made for this fluid — and no part of it was meant to travel that way.
It does not blend. After it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Chatham Green last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It does two kinds of damage from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it eats at some metals, each part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it remains inside. Pipes holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a vehicle parked around Great Leighs. Just in that tank, it stays the same. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that is the whole issue. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside the tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Fuller Street or the centre of Great Leighs, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other error, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, and so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits just inside that tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has stopped in Essex.
Great Leighs: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. The top-up is hurried outside Great Leighs Primary School, because your dash lit up with a warning while the kids were dropped off. Someone pours the container in outside their house, right off Boreham Road, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap tops up the car after dark, parked in the car park outside The Castle.
Rented cars, brand-new motors, company vehicles, or the second car in a family with one of each: the least familiar cars get it the most. Same slip, same first step — leave it off — anywhere you happen to be around Great Leighs or the remainder of Essex.
Great Leighs: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. It has been drawn through the filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Maybe coming back from Great Leighs Village Green, or part way across Great Leighs, your engine might go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or stall. When you safely can, pull over then switch it off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M11, under 15 miles from Great Leighs, at the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Distance counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, so heading for Chelmsford, under 10 miles away, gives a far larger job than hopping across Great Leighs to the car park by Leighs Village Hall. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the motor has been running. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it is caught early.
Great Leighs: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The car remains put, whether that is a road near Great Leighs Free Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt in Great Leighs, and our van comes to it. The job depends on three replies, which our engineers get before all else — what got in, the amount, and if the motor has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together when your tank is emptied, on the spot. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, because residue won't clear away on its own. A test of the vehicle follows last, once fresh diesel is added and your filter gets cleaned or, if necessary, replaced. Engine not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive around Great Leighs or in a space outside Cressing. Before leaving, we check it's running correctly with fresh diesel in. Because the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Great Leighs and where it is
Great Leighs is a village in Essex, situated on the riverside in the Eastern region, with an elevation of around 65 metres. Great Leighs lies approximately 35 miles from London and 6 miles from Chelmsford, with nearby places including Little Leighs and Gubbions Green. Great Leighs has a population of around 1773 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Great Leighs is characterized by its rural setting and residential community.
AdBlue drains across Essex, Great Leighs included
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls in Great Leighs also cover the locations round it, Little Leighs, Gubbions Green and Hornells Corner among them, and most of Essex beyond, across the CM postcode area. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
A mobile service suits Great Leighs, a village: you have no need to bring the vehicle to us, because we empty it on the spot, in a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Great Leighs: the cost of fixing it
Not one single price could be fair, because every job differs. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, since an open driveway is simpler for a technician to get to safely than a tight gap behind St John the Evangelist, Little Leighs.
What went in, what quantity, and if it ran: each Great Leighs call begins by asking exactly that, ahead of any quote, not after. Their answers shrink a range right down to one figure.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Look at your policy while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Great Leighs and still beside the car?
Not touching the car is, then, the most useful move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Great Leighs or anywhere across Essex.