Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hadlow
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, leave the motor off and keep the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; trouble just comes when the pump starts drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Hadlow, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the motor has run. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Hadlow, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
To do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much quantity? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we can know.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a TN11 0 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Do not do these:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition goes on, so leave the car off.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short way down The Square.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Rolling the vehicle off the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Hadlow forecourt you are on, the Three Elm Service Station or any other. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine lets out. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
It does not blend. Once it's poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that's just where AdBlue settles: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. A car filled on a drive in Barnes Street yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once your engine turns, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it's flushed out. Pipes holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a vehicle sitting in Hadlow. Just inside your tank, it stays stable. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, which is a separate form of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger issue?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the another forecourt nearby, and this issue is thinned fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside the tank, it causes none.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Whether your vehicle sits in Parkers Green or the heart of Hadlow, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the following fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere in Kent the car has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue still in the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Hadlow: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap — can look the same. No one means it; plenty of designs allow it. Mostly it is not the forecourt: someone buys a container driving home and pours it in at home.
Usually, 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 Hadlow Primary School. Near Court Lane, someone pours a bottle in at home in the evening. Or a driver new to that flap refills the car in dim light, parked in the car park outside The Rose & Crown.
It comes up most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet car, or the spare car of a home with both fuel types — the cars drivers use the least. Keep it off: that is the first response to an identical mistake, anywhere in Hadlow or the remainder of Kent you happen to be.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hadlow?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Given any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed via the filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Wave Park, say, or part way across Hadlow. Once safe, pull over and switch it off — with no restarting to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
Hadlow sits under 10 miles from the M26; if you were on it, leave at the next junction and pull up safely rather than carrying on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into the system, and so driving for Southend-on-Sea, under 50 miles away, makes a much larger job than hopping across Hadlow to the car park by St. Mary's. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been running. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage if it is noticed quickly.
Hadlow: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Anywhere it has come to rest in Hadlow — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside Hadlow Castle — our van comes to your car. Before anything else we ask what got in, about how much, and whether your motor has been run, because those replies decide the work.
Then that tank is cleared where your car stands, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is flushed right through since what remains won't wash out unaided. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Engine not run? Then expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes at the end. At that point our engineers start the car and you set off, whether from a parking space at Beltring or a drive around Hadlow. It is checked on new diesel to be sure it runs smoothly before our engineers leave. Since the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. At the end, you are given the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Hadlow and where it is
Hadlow is a village situated on the River Medway in Kent, with a low elevation of around 31 metres above sea level. Hadlow lies within the South East region of England, approximately 28 miles from London, and is near the villages of Golden Green, Goose Green, and Pittswood. Hadlow has a population of around 1901 residents, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Hadlow is also relatively close to the city of Southend-on-Sea, which is about 27 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Hadlow and Kent
AdBlue call-outs in Hadlow are passed to teams that serve the towns near it — Golden Green, Goose Green as well as Pittswood — and much of Kent beyond, across TN postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere tricky to pin down? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
Hadlow is a village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Hadlow?
Every job is different, and so no single quote would be honest. Three things shift the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Hadlow Tower.
That's why each call from Hadlow starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it's run. Given them, the range shrinks to one fixed number.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the price on the phone. And payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
In Hadlow and still beside the vehicle?
Then, do nothing — that is the best step available. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Hadlow or wherever within Kent, once you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran.