Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Greatworth
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your engine off then keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Being water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage just starts when your pump begins pulling it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully cleaned where the car sits around Greatworth. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Greatworth: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Which product, and about how much quantity? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our technicians can see.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting OX17 2, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Even a short way up Pargeter Close is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Beside the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
At a forecourt around Greatworth, whether it is the Harvest Energy or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car clear of the pump. On your own drive, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust to treat the gases. Nothing inside a fuel pump is made for this fluid — and no part of it was intended to travel that way.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Thorpe Mandeville last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
After it's pulled in, the damage takes two forms. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow passages and block filters. On top of that, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it's flushed out. A vehicle left sitting around Greatworth with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water gives none of that, and that is a second form of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and the problem is thinned fuel. Blended through the diesel and left unused, it is harmless at that stage; running your engine does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't 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 engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Farthinghoe or the middle of Greatworth.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere around Northamptonshire the vehicle has stopped, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the simplest bit of any fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Greatworth?
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then behind one flap — may look the same. No one intends it; many layouts invite it. Usually it is never the filling station: a driver buys a container heading home and pours it in outside the house.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Greatworth Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up your car. A driver pours the container in at home, right off Chapel Road, as the day ends. One more version: darkness, a pub car park outside Greatworth Sports & Social Club, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
The least familiar vehicles get it the most — rentals, new ones, fleet cars, and the other vehicle of a home with one of each fuel types. Wherever around Northamptonshire, Greatworth included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first response: keep it off.
Greatworth: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the filter, along the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that's where it travels.
Rough running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any might show up, maybe midway across Greatworth or returning from Painter's Spinney. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Greatworth lies under 5 miles from the M40; if you were on it, exit at the first junction and stop somewhere safe rather than driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Greatworth to the car park by Greatworth Methodist Church - Wesleyan Chapel is a very different job from a run towards Milton Keynes, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
Once the engine has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is spotted soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Greatworth?
A road by St. Peter's, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever the vehicle has come to rest around Greatworth, our engineers travel to it. What went in, about the quantity, plus whether the motor has turned over: our technicians check first, because those shape the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after your tank is drained, on the spot. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since what remains won't wash away unaided. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed when it must be. Then clean diesel, and then a check of your car. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when your engine has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Bleeding the system with new diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking space outside Kings Sutton or a driveway in Greatworth, that is where our engineers start it and you drive off. Before leaving, our engineers check it's running smoothly with fresh diesel in. We do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never needs to go to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Greatworth and where it is
Greatworth is a small village in Northamptonshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with an elevation of around 163 metres. Greatworth lies approximately 60 miles northwest of London and 19 miles southeast of Milton Keynes, near the villages of Marston St Lawrence, Halse, and Sulgrave. Greatworth has a population of around 686 people, predominantly living in semi-detached houses.
AdBlue drains in Greatworth and across Northamptonshire
Over the OX postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs around Greatworth reach most of Northamptonshire as well, Marston St Lawrence, Halse and Sulgrave among them. Guessing doesn't help by a border or anywhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
A van that comes to you suits Greatworth, a rural village: you have no need to take the car to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Greatworth: the cost of fixing it
Not one flat figure could be honest, because every job is different. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the car, because an open driveway is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Marston St Lawrence Village Hall.
With that reason, every call from Greatworth begins with the same trio — which fluid went in, how much, if the engine ran — ahead of any quote. Those replies shrink the range right down to a single number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Next to your car around Greatworth, still?
Not touching your car is, then, the best move open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Greatworth or anywhere in Northamptonshire.