AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Green Street? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble starts once it is sucked through your lines — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully purged where your car sits around Green Street. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Green Street
Do these:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, take the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about how much, save the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Quote a WD6 5 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Not to do:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run the pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short way along Stapleton Road is too far to drive it.
- Emptying the tank on your own by the road is not worth trying.
Rolling the vehicle off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Green Street forecourt you're on, the Shell included. At home, the vehicle remains just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It drops, since it's heavier than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its fuel from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Ridge 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 pulled it in.
Once it's pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filter elements and narrow passages; meanwhile, since it eats at certain metals, each part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it remains inside. A vehicle left sitting in Green Street with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second form of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that's the main problem. No harm is done as long as it stays put, blended into your diesel — only when your motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates back out — and the following fill will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Green Street or out in Rowley Green, does more harm than nearly any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever in Hertfordshire the vehicle has come to rest, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Green Street?
It is not on purpose. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, now and then under one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. It usually takes place at home, from a container bought on the journey home, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Parkside Community Primary School. Close to Green Street, someone tips a bottle in at home after work. Another version: dim light, the car park by The Oak, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a new car, a fleet motor, or the other car of a family with one of each fuels — the vehicles people know least. Same mistake, same first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you happen to be around Green Street or the rest of Hertfordshire.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Green Street, and the motor started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. Through your filter, through the pipework, and — with any running — into the injection pump and every injector: that is how far it has gone.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Birch Wood, perhaps, or midway across Green Street. Once safe, pull over and turn everything off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Green Street lies under 3 miles from the Barnet Bypass; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Green Street to the car park by Cowley Hill Free Church is a very different job from a run towards St Albans, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the engine has been run. If it's spotted soon, permanent damage is very unusual.
Green Street: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest in Green Street — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road by St Michael and All Angels Church — the van comes to the car. Three replies decide the job, and so first our technicians ask which fluid went in, roughly the amount, and whether the engine has run.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot removes the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the last step. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, at Elstree & Borehamwood or on a driveway around Green Street. The test before our technicians head off is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to go to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Green Street
Green Street is a village in Hertfordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 123 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Green Street lies approximately 13 miles from London and 6 miles from St Albans, with nearby places including Well End, Borehamwood, and Shenley. Green Street has a population of around 1507 residents, making it a small but distinct community in the area. Green Street is surrounded by the rolling countryside of Hertfordshire, with the River Colne flowing nearby.
AdBlue drains across Green Street and Hertfordshire
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs around Green Street also cover the spots round it, Well End, Borehamwood and Shenley among them, and most of Hertfordshire beyond, across the WD postcode area. Close to a border, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking beats guessing, so ring.
Green Street is a village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Green Street?
Not one single figure would be honest, since each job is different. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it depends on where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Farm Padel.
What was put in, what quantity, and whether the engine ran: every Green Street call opens with precisely that, ahead of a figure, never after. Their answers narrow a range down to a single figure.
Our price is given during the call, before a van sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Check your policy whilst we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Next to your car around Green Street, still?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Green Street or anywhere around Hertfordshire.