Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Heather
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing starts until your motor pulls it through. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully cleaned where the vehicle stands in Heather. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Heather
To do:
- Pull your keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, and so don't bin it out.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting LE67 2, or simply the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Never do these:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, so it is pointless.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short way down Main Street.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
The staff working at any Heather filling station — the Morrisons Daily among them — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, the vehicle remains exactly as it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. From a separate tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine lets out. Nothing in a fuel pump is made for this fluid — and no part of it was meant to go that way.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps separate rather than blending — entirely different from fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the same place the pickup sucks from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Newton Burgoland last night and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of that tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through if your motor starts, before any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of harm 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 running on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a vehicle parked around Heather with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it is just in that tank, nothing changes. And there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol from the BP. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting in that tank, it causes nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue splits again out of the diesel, and so watering it can't help. That is why the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Odstone or the centre of Heather equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in there — wherever in Leicestershire the car sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Heather
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles rests right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container picked up when heading home and tipped in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the usual story.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Heather Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills your car. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive close to Swepstone Road. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up your car after dark, stopped in the car park outside The Crown.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — rentals, new ones, company cars, and the other vehicle of a home with both fuel types. Wherever you're in Heather or the rest of Leicestershire, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Heather?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Given any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed through the fuel filter and lines.
You may see your engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Heather Wood or halfway across Heather. No starting it again to test: stop when it is safe, then switch it off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M42, under 10 miles from Heather, the next junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
Mileage counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system, and so driving for Leicester, under 15 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Heather to the car park by St John the Baptist. Let us know about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the engine has been started. Caught soon, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Heather: what it takes
The car remains put, whether that's a street near Heather Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in Heather, and the van comes to it. What got in, about how much, plus whether the motor has been run: our engineers ask first, since those decide the job.
Then your tank is cleared where the car sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue will not wash out by itself, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts much more with urea than for petrol. Next, your filter: flushed, or replaced when it must be. Then clean diesel, then a test of your car. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Priming the system with new diesel comes last. Then our technicians start the car and you drive off, whether from a parking space outside Polesworth or a driveway around Heather. We check it runs smoothly on new diesel before leaving. Our technicians do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Heather itself
Heather is a village in Leicestershire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 133 metres. Heather lies near the towns of Ibstock and Swepstone, and is approximately 12.9 miles from Leicester. Heather has a population of around 1068 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Heather is located in the East Midlands region, about 98.7 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Heather and across Leicestershire
Over the LE postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue jobs around Heather serve much of Leicestershire too, Ibstock, Swepstone and Normanton le Heath among them. Guessing won't help by a county line or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
Wherever the car sits — a driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a filling station — our engineers drain it there, with no need to take it to us; that suits Heather, a village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Heather?
There is no honest single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. What shifts the price is, firstly, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Ibstock United Junior & Youth Football Club.
Ahead of a quote, never afterwards, each enquiry from Heather opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus whether the engine ran. Those answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. Check your policy whilst we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Still next to your car in Heather?
Right now, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to leave it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Heather or wherever in Leicestershire.