AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Greave? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm happens until the engine sucks it through. In Greave, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Greave
To do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a OL13 9 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your car: the engine stays off.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Oakenclough Road.
- Emptying your tank yourself by the road isn't one to try.
The staff on duty at any Greave filling station — the Texaco among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays apart rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Broad Clough overnight and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of the tank, untouched — though it will be first through once the engine runs, before any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it is cleared out. A car left standing around Greave with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing through them, so the water part harms them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. Blended through your diesel and sitting unused, it is harmless at that stage; running your engine does the damage.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Whether your vehicle sits in Sharneyford or the centre of Greave, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush matters for more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever in Lancashire your car has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Greave
Plenty of vehicles place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, now and then under one flap, and in dim light the two may appear identical. No one means it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. The refill gets rushed outside St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School, a Voluntary Academy, because the dash lit up with a warning while the children were dropped off. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive close to Coal Pit Lane. Else, after dark by the pub in the village, the car gets topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a new car, a fleet vehicle, or the other motor of a family with both fuels — the cars drivers know the least. Wherever you are around Greave or the rest of Lancashire, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Greave, and your engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. With any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and pipework.
You may notice your engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Jeffry Barn Wood or halfway across Greave. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Every start pulls more of that through.
Greave sits under 10 miles from the M66; if you were on it, exit at the first junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Greave to the car park by Bacup Christ Church is a very different job from a run towards Manchester, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Noticed quickly, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Greave: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A street by Christ Church with St John, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere your vehicle has stopped in Greave, our engineers travel to it. The job rests on three answers, and our engineers ask for first — which fluid went in, the amount, and if your motor has run.
Then that tank is drained where your car waits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue won't flush out unaided, so the whole system gets a full flush, which matters much more with urea than with petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
New diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the last step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, at Walsden or on a driveway in Greave. Our engineers confirm it runs correctly on new diesel before leaving. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Greave itself
Greave is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Greave sits at an elevation of 290 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Greave is located near several other small communities, including Higher Change, Lane Head, and Bacup, and is within commuting distance of Manchester, which is approximately 16 miles away.
Greave and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the OL postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs around Greave reach most of Lancashire too, Higher Change, Lane Head and Bacup among them. Phone and ask rather than guess if you are by a county line, or somewhere tricky to explain.
Greave is a residential suburb, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Greave?
There is no honest single price, since the jobs aren't the same. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Broadclough Dykes.
Ahead of a quote, not after, each call from Greave begins with three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. With them, the range shrinks to one fixed number.
You get that quote by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Greave: still beside your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the most helpful move available. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Greave or anywhere in Lancashire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.