AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Headington Hill? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition too. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing happens till the engine sucks it round. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully purged where the car sits in Headington Hill. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Headington Hill
Do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting OX4 1, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- No starting the motor — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Keep it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Cherwell Street.
- Draining that tank yourself by the road is not worth trying.
The staff working at any Headington Hill forecourt — the Shell among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A car filled on a drive in New Headington overnight and left unstarted is the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once your motor turns, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow passages and block filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it is flushed out. A motor left sitting around Headington Hill with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a problem of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is in your tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the following fill, and AdBlue splits back from the diesel, and so watering it can't work. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Norham Manor or the centre of Headington Hill alike.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue waits just inside the tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, wherever the vehicle has stopped around Oxfordshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Headington Hill: how it ends up there
Plenty of motors put the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two may look the same. Nobody means it. Most of the time 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 few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside East Oxford Primary School. A driver pours the container in at home, right off Marston Road, as the day ends. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap refills the car in dim light, stopped in the car park by Port Mahon.
The least known cars see it the most — hire cars, new ones, fleet ones, and the other car in a family with one of each fuel types. Wherever across Oxfordshire, Headington Hill as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it off.
Headington Hill: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing via the fuel filter and lines.
You may notice the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from St Clement’s Garden or halfway across Headington Hill. Once you safely can, stop and switch it off — without turning it on again to see. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the Wheatley Spur, under 10 miles from Headington Hill, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Headington Hill to the car park by South Park Commemoration Stone is a very different job from a run towards Oxford, under a mile away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the car has come to a stop, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. If it's spotted early, permanent damage is very rare.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Headington Hill
Anywhere it has stopped around Headington Hill — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road beside International Brigade Memorial — the van comes to the car. Which fluid was put in, about how much, and if the motor has turned over: our technicians ask first, because those decide the job.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. Residue from AdBlue will not wash out unaided, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters much more with urea than with petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, if your motor has not run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no issue, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to prime the system on clean diesel. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive around Headington Hill or in a space by Oxford. Before we go, we confirm it's running correctly with new diesel in. Our technicians do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Headington Hill
Headington Hill is a suburban area situated near the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Headington Hill sits close to the city centre of Oxford, at an elevation of around 64 metres, and is connected to nearby places like New Marston and Grandpont. Headington Hill is home to a population of approximately 6761 residents, who enjoy easy access to the city's facilities. Headington Hill is also within commuting distance of London, located around 50.5 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Headington Hill and Oxfordshire
Throughout the OX postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in Headington Hill reach much of Oxfordshire too, New Marston, Oxford and Grandpont included. Assuming doesn't help close to a county line or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
No towing is needed. In Headington Hill, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: your car is drained where it stands, be it in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Headington Hill: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be fair, because every job is different. What moves the price is, first of all, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and after that where your car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind St Clement's WW1 Memorial Cross.
What was put in, how much, and if it ran: each Headington Hill call opens with exactly those, ahead of a quote, not afterwards. When they are known, a range becomes one firm number.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Headington Hill: still alongside the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to leave it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Headington Hill or anywhere around Oxfordshire.