Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Harthill
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your motor off then leave your ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the fuel system draws it in. Caught before the motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Harthill. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Harthill, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
Do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the quantity, and so do not throw it out.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting S26 7, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your vehicle: your engine remains off.
- Your ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance down Woodall Lane is too far to drive the car.
- Do not try to drain it yourself by the roadside.
Moving your vehicle away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Harthill forecourt you're on, the Shell included. On your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump cannot take urea.
It does not combine. After it is tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. A motor filled on a driveway in Thorpe Salvin overnight and not started since counts as the simple one. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though once your motor runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and block filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. A vehicle left standing around Harthill with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, which is a second kind of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Gulf and you have a fault of thin fuel. Mixed into your diesel and sitting unused, it is no threat for now; using the engine is the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, so it cannot just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Norwood or the middle of Harthill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Anywhere around South Yorkshire your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Harthill
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the filling station: a driver buys a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. The refill is hurried outside Harthill Primary School, because the dash lit up with a warning while the kids were taken in. After work, a bottle goes in on a driveway near Union Street. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside Blue Bell Inn, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company vehicle, or the other motor in a home with both fuels — the vehicles drivers use least. Anywhere across South Yorkshire, Harthill as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Harthill?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. The filter and lines have had it sucked through, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Perhaps returning from Spens Field, or midway across Harthill, the motor might run rough, smoke, lose pace, light up the dash or stall. No starting it again to check: stop when safe, then turn everything off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M1, under a mile from Harthill, at the first junction and park safely, not carrying on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Harthill to the car park by Harthill Village Hall is a very different job from a run towards Sheffield, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the motor has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the vehicle has come to a stop. When it's noticed quickly, long-term damage is very unusual.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Harthill
A street by Dedicated to All The Men and Boys Who Lost Their Lives at Kiveton Park Colliery 1866-1994, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever your car has stopped around Harthill, our engineers travel to it. What got in, roughly the quantity, plus if the engine has turned over: we check first, because those decide the job.
Then the tank is drained where the car sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue won't flush away by itself, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts far more with urea than with petrol. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the final step. You head off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway in Harthill or in a space by Kiveton Park. It is tested on fresh diesel to make sure it runs smoothly before our technicians go. As the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Harthill itself
Harthill is a village in South Yorkshire, situated near lakes and woodland areas, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Harthill sits at an elevation of around 114 metres, approximately 9.6 miles from Sheffield. Harthill is located near several other small communities, including Woodall and Kiveton Park. Harthill has a population of around 1060 people, living in a variety of housing types, predominantly semi-detached homes.
Harthill and South Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the S postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Harthill reach most of South Yorkshire too, Woodall, Kiveton Park and Wales included. Assuming doesn't help close to a county line or somewhere tricky to describe; ring and ask.
A van that comes to you suits Harthill, a village: you have no need to bring the vehicle to us, since our technicians drain it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Harthill: the cost of fixing it
Since the jobs differ, a flat price wouldn't be honest. Three things shift the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether a van can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind Wales Parish Council.
Ahead of a quote, not afterwards, every call from Harthill begins with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and if it ran. Their answers shrink a range right down to a single number.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Harthill: still beside your car?
Then, the best thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Harthill or anywhere in South Yorkshire.