Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hazlerigg
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Hazlerigg, is normally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your motor has been run. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps straight away, Hazlerigg: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- Remove your keys, which prevents someone switching the power on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting NE13 7, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Moving the vehicle even a short way is no reason to start the engine.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the moment the ignition comes on, and so keep the car off.
- Adding extra diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short way down Windt Street.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the kerbside.
The staff on duty at any Hazlerigg filling station — the Asda Express included — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the car precisely where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps apart instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the very place the pickup draws from. A vehicle filled on a drive in Brunton Park yesterday evening and left unstarted is the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the engine runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and tiny channels; and, because it eats at some metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it remains inside. Overnight, a vehicle sitting around Hazlerigg with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it's just in that tank, nothing changes. Then there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Wideopen Service Station and you have an issue of thin fuel. No damage is done as long as it stays put, mixed into the diesel — only when the motor works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Seaton Burn or the centre of Hazlerigg, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other mistake, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits just in your tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, wherever the vehicle has come to rest around Tyne and Wear.
Hazlerigg: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally under one flap — can appear the same. No one means it; many layouts allow it. A bottle bought while driving home and poured in at home, instead of at the filling station, is the typical story.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. Hurrying, outside Hazlewood Community Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, a parent tops up the car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Ryall Avenue. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside Hazelrigg Victory and District Social Club, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
Hired vehicles, new cars, company cars, or the second vehicle in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles see it most. An identical mistake, an identical first response — keep it switched off — anywhere you are around Hazlerigg or the rest of Tyne and Wear.
Hazlerigg: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been drawn through your filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Dark Plantation, say, or midway across Hazlerigg. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the A167(M), under 5 miles from Hazlerigg, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Distance counts: every mile carries the AdBlue further into your system, so driving towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 5 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Hazlerigg to the car park by St Cuthbert's Church. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the motor has been run, and our engineers do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is noticed early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Hazlerigg?
Wherever it has come to rest around Hazlerigg — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Woodlands Hall — our van travels to your vehicle. The work rests on three replies, and we ask for first — what was put in, the amount, and whether the motor has run.
On the spot, your tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. What remains from AdBlue won't wash out unaided, so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts much more with urea than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where your engine has not run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Finally, the system is bled with clean diesel. Whether it is a parking space outside Cramlington or a driveway in Hazlerigg, that is where our technicians start the car and you drive off. The test before we head off is that it runs properly on clean diesel. Since the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Hazlerigg, briefly
Hazlerigg is a village in Tyne and Wear, situated inland at an elevation of around 70 metres, approximately 4.5 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne. Hazlerigg is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is located near other settlements such as Brunswick Village and Wideopen. Hazlerigg has a population of around 2104 people and is part of the wider North East region. Hazlerigg is some 252 miles north of London, making it a relatively distant suburb of the Newcastle upon Tyne urban area.
AdBlue drains around Hazlerigg and across Tyne and Wear
AdBlue jobs around Hazlerigg go to vans that cover the towns near it — Brunswick Village, Wideopen plus North Brunton — and much of Tyne and Wear beyond, throughout NE postcodes. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No moving is needed. In Hazlerigg, a rural village, a van that comes to you works: your car is drained on the spot, be it in a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Hazlerigg
Since each jobs differ, a flat figure wouldn't be fair. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the car, because an open driveway is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Wideopen Library.
For that reason, each call from Hazlerigg opens by asking the same trio — what was put in, what quantity, if the engine ran — before any figure. Those replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Next to your car around Hazlerigg, right now?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Hazlerigg or wherever in Tyne and Wear.