Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Highfield
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does your engine. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage just starts when your pump begins pulling it. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Highfield. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Highfield: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pocket your keys, and that prevents someone turning the power on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a EX14 4 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: the motor remains off.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself sets your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short way down Catalina Close.
- Draining your tank on your own beside the road is not one to try.
Moving the vehicle off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Highfield forecourt you are on, the Regent or any other. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Stored in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust to clean the gases. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Sheldon last night and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue sits at the base of that tank, undrawn — though it will be first through once your motor runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
After it is pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; and, since it attacks certain metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it stays in there. If the AdBlue is in the lines, leaving it overnight around Highfield leaves it worse. In your tank only, time costs nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the BP. No damage is done as long as it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It can't just be run through, because it does not burn. Whether your vehicle is in Mackham or the centre of Highfield, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other mistake, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not remain mixed, and so watering it down fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following fill.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits just in that tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere your car has stopped around Devon.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Highfield
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container picked up while driving home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the typical route.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Broadhembury Church of England Primary School the top-up is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Culme Way. Or a driver new to that flap refills the car after dark, stopped in the car park by the pub in the village.
Rented vehicles, new vehicles, fleet cars, or the second car in a home with both fuels: the least known cars see it most. Anywhere across Devon, Highfield included, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Highfield?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. It has been drawn through your filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
Expect rough running, smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Dunkeswell Turbury, say, or midway across Highfield. No restarting to check: pull over when it is safe, then switch everything off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M5, under 10 miles from Highfield, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Mileage counts: each mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so driving for Exeter, under 25 miles away, gives a much bigger job than hopping across Highfield to the car park by Dunkeswell Village Hall. Let us know about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been run. If it's spotted soon, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Highfield: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped in Highfield: a side street close to St Nicholas, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three replies, which we get first — what went in, the quantity, and whether your engine has turned over.
Next, draining that tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. A careful flush counts much more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what remains will not wash away by itself. After that, the filter: flushed, or changed when it must be. After that clean diesel, then a check of the vehicle. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we arrive, provided the engine has not run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the final step. Starting it comes next, and then you head off from where the car is parked, outside Honiton or on a drive around Highfield. It is checked on new diesel to confirm it runs properly before our engineers go. We do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Afterwards, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Highfield, briefly
Highfield is a suburban area in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of 254 metres, approximately 16 miles from Exeter. Highfield has a population of around 1518 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Highfield is located near other small settlements such as Dunkeswell, Stentwood, and Luppitt, in the rolling countryside of the South West region.
AdBlue drains across Devon, Highfield included
Our teams that answer AdBlue calls in Highfield also cover the places about it, Dunkeswell, Stentwood and Luppitt among them, and most of Devon beyond, across the EX postcode area. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Highfield 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 technicians drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Highfield: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the car, since an open driveway is simpler for a technician to get to safely than a tight spot behind Dunkeswell Methodist Church.
Which fluid was put in, what quantity, plus whether it ran: every Highfield enquiry begins with exactly that, before any quote, never afterwards. Their answers shrink the range right down to one number.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still next to the vehicle in Highfield?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Highfield or anywhere in Devon, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.