AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Guys Marsh? Keep It Switched Off
Motor off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm starts until your motor sucks it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Guys Marsh, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before your engine has run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Guys Marsh
Things to do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the product and the quantity, and so don't throw it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting SP7 0, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift your vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the instant your ignition goes on, and so leave the car off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not thin it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way down Denham Drive.
- By the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
The staff on duty at any Guys Marsh forecourt — the Murco included — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump is not made to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the very place the intake sucks from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Hartgrove overnight and has not turned since. The liquid sits at the base of your tank, undrawn — but it will be first through if your engine runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and narrow channels; and, since it attacks certain metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it remains in there. Overnight, a car sitting in Guys Marsh with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it is just inside that tank, it doesn't. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
A problem of thinned fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Tesco. Mixed through your diesel and left still, it is no threat at that stage; running your motor is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It does not burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Whether the car is in St James or the heart of Guys Marsh, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other error, and the flush matters more. Why: it will not remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Dorset the car is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Guys Marsh?
Many vehicles place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and after dark the two can look the same. No one intends it. A bottle bought while driving home and tipped in at home, instead of at the filling station, is the usual route.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside The Abbey CofE VA Primary School, Shaftesbury, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone tops up your car. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive near B3091. Otherwise, in dim light outside the pub in the village, the car gets refilled by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the spare car in a home with both fuel types — the cars drivers use least. Wherever you are around Guys Marsh or the remainder of Dorset, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Guys Marsh?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. It's been drawn through the filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Rough running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any may show up, maybe part way across Guys Marsh or returning from Guys Marsh Sports Field. Once safe, stop and turn everything off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M27, under 50 miles from Guys Marsh, at the next junction and stop safely, not carrying on.
Distance counts: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into the system, and so heading towards Salisbury, under 25 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Guys Marsh to the car park by St James. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been started, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has come to a stop. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it's noticed quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Guys Marsh?
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that is a street beside Stour Row Village Hall, a drive, a layby or a forecourt around Guys Marsh, and our van comes to it. Three replies decide the job, and so first we ask what was put in, roughly the amount, and whether the engine has run.
Then the tank is drained where the vehicle stands, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
New diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the last step. You drive off as soon as we have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Guys Marsh or in a bay at Gillingham (Dorset). The check before our engineers leave is that it runs properly on new diesel. Since the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. At the end, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Guys Marsh
Guys Marsh is a small village in Dorset, situated inland at an elevation of around 98 metres. Guys Marsh lies near the villages of Alcester and Twyford, and is close to Kit Hill. Guys Marsh has a population of approximately 520 people, predominantly living in terraced housing.
AdBlue drains in Guys Marsh and across Dorset
AdBlue jobs around Guys Marsh go to vans that cover the towns near it — Kit Hill, Alcester plus Twyford — and most of Dorset beyond, throughout SP postcodes. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Anywhere the vehicle sits — a driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our technicians empty it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits Guys Marsh, a rural village, well.
Guys Marsh: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no honest single quote, since the jobs are not 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 depends on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Oldest House in Shaftesbury.
What was put in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Guys Marsh enquiry begins with precisely that, before any figure, not afterwards. Given those replies, the range shrinks to a single fixed number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the price by phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. As the van is on the way, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Next to the car in Guys Marsh, still?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Guys Marsh or anywhere within Dorset.