AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Great Somerford? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off and keep the ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing starts until your motor pulls it through. In Great Somerford, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps right now, Great Somerford: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- Take the keys out, so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Which product, and roughly how much volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and we can know.
- Tell us a postcode starting SN15 5, or whichever street lies nearest, and the van finds you directly — so call wherever you are.
Never do these:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition goes on, so keep the vehicle off.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel won't weaken it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short distance along Top Street.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Great Somerford filling station — the the nearest petrol station included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. Neither side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits beneath the diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Little Somerford yesterday and not switched on remains the simple one, as long as no one touches your key.
After it is sucked in, the damage takes two forms. 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, so it keeps working on the components it reaches for as long as it remains there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting till morning in Great Somerford makes it worse. Inside the tank alone, time costs nothing. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water gives none of that, which is a separate kind of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a problem of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is in your tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't 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 almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Upper Seagry or the middle of Great Somerford.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever in Wiltshire your car has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Great Somerford?
Many vehicles place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. No one means it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Somerfords' Walter Powell CofE Academy. A driver pours the bottle in outside their house, just off West Street, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light outside The Volunteer Inn, the vehicle gets topped up by someone opening that flap the first time.
Rented vehicles, brand-new motors, company cars, or the second vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Same slip, same first step — keep it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Great Somerford or the rest of Wiltshire.
Great Somerford: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Via the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — given any running — on to the injection pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Maybe returning from Peter's Wood, or part way across Great Somerford, your motor may go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M4, under 3 miles from Great Somerford, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Mileage matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, so driving for Bath, under 25 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Great Somerford to the car park by St Peter & St Paul. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has ended up, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very uncommon when it's noticed early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Great Somerford
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Great Somerford: a side street near Little Somerford Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three replies, which we get before all else — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if your engine has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one when your tank is drained, on the spot. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since what remains will not wash out by itself. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that is the last step. At that point we start it and you set off, whether from a parking bay at Chippenham or a driveway around Great Somerford. The check before our engineers head off is that it runs properly on clean diesel. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Great Somerford, for a moment
Great Somerford is a village in Wiltshire, situated on the banks of the River Avon at an elevation of 64 metres. Great Somerford lies near the villages of Lower Seagry and Startley, and is close to Seagry Heath. Great Somerford has a population of around 637 people, predominantly living in detached houses, and is located 17.2 miles from the city of Bath.
AdBlue drains across Wiltshire, Great Somerford included
AdBlue jobs in Great Somerford are passed to teams that serve the towns near it — Seagry Heath, Lower Seagry as well as Startley — and most of Wiltshire beyond, across SN postcodes. Phone and check instead of guessing when you're by a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
A van that comes to you fits Great Somerford, a village: there's no need to take your vehicle to us, since our technicians drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
Great Somerford: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No flat price could be honest, because every job is different. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of your car, since an open drive is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind St James the Great.
Before any quote, never afterwards, every call from Great Somerford begins with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and if it ran. Given them, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. Check your policy whilst we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Great Somerford and still next to your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best step available. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if it ran is everything our engineers need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Wiltshire, Great Somerford too.