Henleaze: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your engine off then leave your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Henleaze, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the engine has run. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Henleaze: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Take your keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about what volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and we can see.
- Ring just where you are. Say a BS6 7 postcode or the closest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Never do these:
- Shifting your car just a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets your pump running on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance up Brookland Road.
- Draining your tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
The attendants on duty at any Henleaze forecourt — the Shell included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, your car stays just as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
It doesn't combine. Once it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A motor filled on a driveway in Horfield yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though when your engine turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of damage come from there. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny passages and block filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it is cleared out. Overnight, a vehicle sitting around Henleaze with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it is only in the tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, and that is a separate kind of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a problem of thin fuel. Blended into your diesel and sitting still, it's no threat for now; running the motor is the harm.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, so it cannot simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be weakened. 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 the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Redland or the middle of Henleaze.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere around Bristol your vehicle has stopped, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Henleaze
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts invite it. A bottle bought when driving home and tipped in at home, instead of at the filling station, is the typical route.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Henleaze Junior School. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a driveway close to Kellaway Avenue. Else, after dark by The Gloucester Old Spot, your vehicle is refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the spare motor in a family with both fuels — the vehicles drivers know the least. Wherever in Bristol, Henleaze as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it switched off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Henleaze, and your engine started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been drawn through the fuel filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
You may notice the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from RGS Bristol Sports Ground or halfway across Henleaze. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the car off rather than restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
On the M32, under 3 miles from Henleaze, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
Distance matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, so heading towards Bristol, under 3 miles away, gives a far bigger job than crossing Henleaze to the car park by The Ardagh. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the car has stopped, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. If it's noticed early, lasting damage is very unusual.
Henleaze: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The vehicle stays put, whether that is a street near Church Of The Good Shepherd, a drive, a layby or a forecourt around Henleaze, and the van travels to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether your engine has been run, because those answers determine the work.
Next, draining the tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. After that, your filter: cleaned, or changed when it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a test of the vehicle. Not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, the system is bled with new diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, by Ashley Down or on a driveway around Henleaze. Our technicians check it runs smoothly on clean diesel before we go. No garage is required at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. At the end, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Henleaze, for a moment
Henleaze is a suburban area located in the north of Bristol, situated approximately 2.2 miles from the city centre. Henleaze sits at an elevation of around 80 metres, and is characterised by its predominantly terraced housing stock. Henleaze is bordered by nearby places such as Westbury Park, Bishopston, and Ashley Down, and is home to a population of around 8339 people. Henleaze is also relatively close to major transport links, being around 106 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Henleaze and Bristol
Westbury Park, Bishopston and Ashley Down are among the towns near Henleaze that the same vans serve, along with most of Bristol beyond, over the BS postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a county line or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Henleaze is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Henleaze
No single figure would be fair, since each job differs. What moves the price is, first, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Archibald Alec Leach (Cary Grant).
Ahead of a quote, not after, every call from Henleaze begins with three questions: the fuel, the amount, and if it ran. Once they are known, a range turns into one fixed number.
Before anyone sets off, you hear our quote on the phone. Then you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Alongside the vehicle in Henleaze, right now?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if the engine ran is everything we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest across Bristol, Henleaze included.