High Brooms: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in High Brooms, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before your motor has been run. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around High Brooms
Do:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents anyone turning the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about what quantity, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting TN4 9, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself starts your pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Highfield Road.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
The staff working at any High Brooms filling station — the BP included — will usually help pushing it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the car just where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated tank it is fed directly to the exhaust, treating what your motor lets out. Nothing inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and no part of it was meant to go through one.
It doesn't combine. After it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Sherwood Park overnight and not started since is the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting till morning around High Brooms leaves it worse. In the tank alone, time costs nothing. And there's the water: it offers no protection to the parts that need it most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more significant than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the Shell, and the problem is diluted fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside that tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Sandown Park or the middle of High Brooms.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere around Kent your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue still in the reservoir: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around High Brooms?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually occurs outside the house, from a container grabbed on the journey home, not at the filling station.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. The refill gets hurried outside St Matthew's High Brooms Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, after your dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off North Farm Road. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up your vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park by The Robin Hood.
The least known vehicles get it the most — hire cars, brand-new cars, fleet ones, and the other motor in a family with one of each fuels. Keep it off: that's the first response to an identical mistake, wherever around High Brooms or the remainder of Kent you happen to be.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around High Brooms?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. With any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and every injector, after passing via the filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from Colebrook Recreation Grounds, say, or part way across High Brooms. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Leave the car off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
High Brooms sits under 15 miles from the M26; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop somewhere safe rather than driving on.
A quick hop across High Brooms to the car park by St Matthew's Church is one matter; heading towards Brighton and Hove, under 50 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the engine has been run. Noticed early, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
High Brooms: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped in High Brooms — a filling station, a layby, a driveway, a road by Church of Christ — the van comes to the car. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if your engine has run, because those replies decide this work.
Then that tank is drained where the car stands, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters far more after AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't clear away on its own. Testing the car comes at the end, after clean diesel goes in and your filter gets cleaned or, where necessary, swapped. Not run? Then expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
New diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that is the final step. You drive off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around High Brooms or in a space by the nearest station. The check before our technicians leave is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. As the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About High Brooms itself
High Brooms is a suburban area in Kent, situated approximately 30 miles southeast of London and near the city of Brighton and Hove. High Brooms sits at an elevation of around 90 metres, characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. High Brooms is located near other local areas such as Sherwood, St James, and St Johns, and has a population of around 9184 residents.
High Brooms and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs around High Brooms go to teams that serve the places near it — Sherwood, St James as well as St Johns — and much of Kent beyond, throughout TN postcodes. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
High Brooms is a residential suburb, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around High Brooms: the cost of fixing it
No flat price could be fair, since every job differs. Three things move the cost: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where your car is. That last one rests on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight gap behind Bethel Hall.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, plus whether it ran: every High Brooms enquiry opens by asking precisely that, ahead of any quote, not afterwards. Their answers narrow the range right down to one figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price on the phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In High Brooms and still next to the car?
Then, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if the engine ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Kent, High Brooms too.