High Halden: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. The harm begins once it is sucked through the pump — it will not burn, and it will not combine with diesel. In High Halden, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in High Halden: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Pull the keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Which fluid, and roughly what amount? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our technicians will see.
- Call right where you are. Say a TN26 3 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Don't:
- No starting the motor — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, so it's wasted.
- Even a short distance up Church Hill is too far to drive it.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the roadside.
The staff working at any High Halden filling station — the Esso among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. On your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the same place the pickup sucks from. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Tanden yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once your engine turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. 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, so it keeps working on the components it gets to for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning around High Halden leaves things worse. Inside the tank only, time does nothing. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the Gulf, and the problem is thinned fuel. No damage is done while it sits unused, mixed into the diesel — only when your motor works on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Deposits and corrosion remain through the next tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of your diesel, and so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush counts more, and turning your key "to see" costs more here than nearly any other slip — in London Beach or the centre of High Halden equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Kent your car is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around High Halden?
It is not on purpose. Many cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, now and then under one flap, and mixing them up is easy after dark. It usually happens outside the house, from a bottle bought on the journey home, not at the filling station.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside High Halden Church of England Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, a parent tops up the car. A driver tips the bottle in at home, right off Tilden Close, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Chequers, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are in High Halden or the remainder of Kent, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in High Halden, and the motor started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through the filter and pipework.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any might show up, maybe midway across High Halden or returning from Hookstead Green. No starting it again to check: stop once safe, then turn it off. Every start pulls more of it through.
Exit the M20, under 10 miles from High Halden, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading towards Canterbury, under 25 miles away, makes a far bigger job than crossing High Halden to the car park by St. Mary the Virgin. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where your car has come to a stop, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it's noticed soon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around High Halden
Anywhere it has stopped in High Halden — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside St Michael — our van comes to the car. The job depends on three answers, and we get first — what went in, the amount, and if your motor has run.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. A careful flush matters far more with AdBlue than with petrol, because residue will not clear out by itself. Next, your filter: cleaned, or changed if it has to be. Then clean diesel, and then a check of the car. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, provided the motor has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
Last, your system is bled with clean diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, by Pluckley or on a drive around High Halden. It is checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs smoothly before our technicians leave. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About High Halden itself
High Halden is a rural village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 48 metres, and is located approximately 20 miles from Canterbury. High Halden has a population of around 797 residents and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. High Halden is surrounded by nearby places such as Middle Quarter, Durrant Green, and Further Quarter, and is about 45.8 miles from London.
High Halden and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the TN postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs in High Halden reach much of Kent as well, Middle Quarter, Durrant Green and Further Quarter among them. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No towing is needed. In High Halden, a rural village, a mobile service works: the vehicle is drained where it stands, whether in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in High Halden?
Each job differs, and so not one fixed price would be honest. Three things shift the cost: whether your engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight gap behind Trinity Baptist Church.
Before a quote, never after, every enquiry from High Halden opens with three checks: the liquid, the quantity, and whether it ran. Given them, a range shrinks to a single firm number.
The price is given on the call, before a van sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Still alongside the car in High Halden?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move there is. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across High Halden or anywhere in Kent, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran.