Hardwicke: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your motor off then leave the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens till the motor sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Hardwicke, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has been run. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Hardwicke: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Which product, and about how much quantity? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Give us a postcode starting GL2 4, or whichever street lies closest, and our van finds you directly — so ring wherever you are.
Don't do these:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to reposition the car.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition comes on, and so keep it off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way along Hildyard Close.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
The attendants working at any Hardwicke forecourt — the Asda among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. On that drive, the car stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
It doesn't combine. After it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. It sinks, because it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its supply from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it sits underneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Lower Rea last night and never started stays the simple one, provided nobody turns the key.
After it is pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow passages and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it's cleared out. A motor left standing around Hardwicke with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Then there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol from the BP. No damage comes while it sits unused, mixed into your diesel — only once your engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, so watering it can't help. That is why the flush matters so much, and turning your key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Parkend or the heart of Hardwicke alike.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits only inside the tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, wherever your vehicle has stopped in Gloucestershire.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Hardwicke
It's not on purpose. Many cars have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Hardwicke Parochial Primary Academy, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Elmgrove Road East. Otherwise, after dark outside The Bumble Bee, the car gets refilled by someone using that flap for the first time.
The least familiar cars see it the most — hire cars, new cars, fleet ones, and the spare motor in a home with one of each fuels. Wherever you are in Hardwicke or the rest of Gloucestershire, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hardwicke?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Through the fuel filter, along the lines, and — with any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it has gone.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any might appear, maybe part way across Hardwicke or coming back from Fieldcourt Drive Open Space. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Hardwicke lies under 3 miles from the M5; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
A quick hop across Hardwicke to the car park by British Legion is one matter; driving for Gloucester, under 5 miles away, is something else, because every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance matters. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once the engine has been started, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage if it's noticed quickly.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Hardwicke: what it takes
Our technicians come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Hardwicke: a side street close to Hardwicke Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three answers, which we get first — what was put in, the quantity, and whether your motor has run.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. What remains from AdBlue will not wash out by itself, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, provided your engine hasn't run. The equipment is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no issue, and it's quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to prime your system on new diesel. You drive off as soon as our engineers have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Hardwicke or in a space at Gloucester. Before we leave, we confirm it's running properly with new diesel in. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never has to be taken to a garage. Afterwards, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Hardwicke itself
Hardwicke is a village in Gloucestershire, situated on the banks of the River Severn at an elevation of around 18 metres. Hardwicke lies close to the city of Gloucester, with which it has strong transport links, and is also near to the settlements of Four Mile Elm and Quedgeley. Hardwicke has a mix of housing types, but terraced houses are particularly prevalent in the village.
AdBlue drains in Hardwicke and across Gloucestershire
AdBlue jobs in Hardwicke go to vans that serve the towns near it — Four Mile Elm, Hardeicke as well as Quedgeley — and much of Gloucestershire beyond, across GL postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
Anywhere your vehicle sits — a driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers empty it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Hardwicke, a village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Hardwicke
Each job is different, and so no single quote would be fair. Three things shift the cost: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Quedgeley Methodist Church.
What went in, what quantity, and whether it ran: every Hardwicke enquiry opens by asking precisely those, ahead of any quote, not after. Given those replies, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Look at your policy whilst we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Hardwicke: still alongside your car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the best move open to you. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Hardwicke or anywhere within Gloucestershire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran.