AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hammer? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Being water-based, it will not ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble just comes when your pump starts pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Hammer, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your engine has run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Hammer: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pocket your keys, which stops someone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much quantity? Save the bottle or the receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Call just where you are. Quote a GU27 3 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Turning your key to ignition alone starts the pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's wasted.
- Never drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch along Liphook Road.
- Beside the road, don't try draining it on your own.
The attendants on duty at any Hammer forecourt — the Arnolds Garage included — will usually help rolling it aside if you ask. At home, the vehicle stays just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate reservoir it is fed directly to your exhaust, treating what the motor lets out. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the very spot the intake draws from. A car filled on a driveway in Critchmere overnight and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the motor runs, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it hits for as long as it remains there. A vehicle left sitting in Hammer with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Asda Express and you have a problem of thin fuel. No damage is done while it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only once the engine runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. It cannot just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Deposits and corrosion stay after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits back out of the diesel, so watering it can't work. Hence the flush counts more, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Camelsdale or the heart of Hammer equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across West Sussex the vehicle is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Hammer?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill is rushed outside Camelsdale Primary School, after the dash flashed with a warning as the kids were dropped off. After work, a bottle goes in on a drive near Linchmere Road. Or a driver new to that flap refills your car in dim light, stopped in the car park by The Mill.
Hired cars, new cars, fleet cars, or the second vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least familiar cars see it most. Wherever you're around Hammer or the rest of West Sussex, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Hammer: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. It's been drawn through your filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any may show up, perhaps part way across Hammer or coming back from Hammer Moor. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the M3, under 25 miles from Hammer, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
A quick hop across Hammer to the car park by 3 Counties Vineyard is one thing; driving for Chichester, under 25 miles away, is another, since each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage if it's noticed quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Hammer?
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Hammer: a side street near St Paul, Camelsdale, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies decide the job, and so before anything else our technicians ask what was put in, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine has run.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is flushed right through since what remains won't flush away unaided. Testing your car comes last, once clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, where needed, replaced. Not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no fault, and it's quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the last step. After that our technicians start the engine and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Haslemere or a driveway around Hammer. The check before we head off is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. As the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Hammer
Hammer is a small village in West Sussex, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 134 metres. Hammer sits near the borders of several neighbouring communities, including Hammer Bottom, Shottermill, and Woolmer Hill. Hammer has a population of around 624 residents, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Hammer is located 17 miles from Chichester and 39.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Hammer and across West Sussex
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Hammer also cover the spots round it, Hammer Bottom, Shottermill and Woolmer Hill among them, and most of West Sussex beyond, across the GU postcode area. Guessing doesn't help by a border or anywhere tricky to pin down; phone and check.
Anywhere the vehicle stands — your driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a filling station — our technicians empty it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; that suits Hammer, a village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Hammer?
Because the jobs differ, a flat price wouldn't be fair. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the car, since an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight gap behind St Stephen's Church.
That is why every call from Hammer starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it has run. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your insurance while we're on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Beside the vehicle in Hammer, still?
Not touching your car is, then, the best thing you can do. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Hammer or anywhere in West Sussex, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran.