AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Great Rollright? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep the motor off and leave your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once your pump begins drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Great Rollright, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your motor has run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Great Rollright
Do:
- Remove the keys, and that prevents anyone turning the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Which fluid, and about how much volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Call just where you are. Quote a OX7 5 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the fuel pump.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is pointless.
- Even a short stretch down The Green is too far to drive the car.
- Emptying that tank on your own beside the road isn't one to try.
At a forecourt around Great Rollright, whether it's the Shell or another one, ask the staff to help you push your car clear of the pump. At your own drive, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue settles: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Ascott overnight and not started since is the simple case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though when the motor turns, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It does two kinds of damage from there. 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 labouring on the components it reaches for as long as it remains there. A vehicle left standing around Great Rollright with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, and that is a second kind of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger fault?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Esso's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that's the whole fault. Blended into your diesel and sitting unused, it's harmless at that stage; running your engine does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Whichford or the middle of Great Rollright.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Oxfordshire the car is sitting.
Great Rollright: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside Great Rollright Church of England (Aided) Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills your car. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive near Chapel End. Or the car is topped up in the car park at the pub in the village, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same slip, an identical first step — leave it switched off — wherever you are in Great Rollright or the remainder of Oxfordshire.
Great Rollright: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Through your filter, through the lines, and — with any running — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from William's Copse, perhaps, or part way across Great Rollright. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M40, under 15 miles from Great Rollright, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That is why crossing Great Rollright to park beside Great Rollright Village Hall and a drive of under 25 miles towards Oxford are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the flushing where your car has come to a stop, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it's spotted quickly.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Great Rollright
A street beside Saint Andrew's, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the car has stopped around Great Rollright, our technicians travel to it. Three answers decide the work, and so first we ask what went in, about the amount, and whether your motor has turned over.
Then your tank is cleared where your car sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because residue won't wash away unaided. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming the fuel system with fresh diesel comes last. Whether it's a parking space at Kingham or a drive in Great Rollright, that is where our technicians start the engine and you drive off. It is tested on fresh diesel to make sure it runs correctly before we go. As the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Great Rollright, briefly
Great Rollright is a small village in Oxfordshire, situated near the River Evenlode and close to the Cotswold Hills. Great Rollright sits at an elevation of 218 metres, with the village centre surrounded by rolling countryside and woodland. Great Rollright has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is located near other small settlements such as Over Norton and Little Rollright.
AdBlue drains around Great Rollright and across Oxfordshire
Over Norton, Little Rollright and Scotland End are among the places near Great Rollright that the same teams reach, along with most of Oxfordshire further out, throughout the OX postcode area. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Great Rollright is a village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Great Rollright
Since each callouts differ, a flat price wouldn't be fair. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Whispering Knights.
What was put in, what quantity, and if the engine ran: each Great Rollright call begins by asking exactly those, ahead of a figure, never after. When those are answered, a range becomes a single fixed figure.
Before a van heads out, you hear our price by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
In Great Rollright and still next to the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Great Rollright or wherever in Oxfordshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran.