Highfields: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it is sucked through the pump — it will not ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Highfields. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Highfields, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
Do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, take your keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call just where you are. Quote a LE2 0 postcode or the closest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Not to do:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to shift your car.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short stretch along Seymour Street is too far to drive the car.
- Emptying that tank yourself by the road is not worth trying.
Rolling your car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Highfields forecourt you're on, the Gulf or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave it precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, and there it treats the gas. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It drops, because it is heavier than diesel, and pools down where the intake draws its supply from. A vehicle topped up on a driveway in North Evington yesterday evening and not started since is the simple one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine runs, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in narrow passages and clog filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it is cleared out. A motor left standing in Highfields with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, and so the water content harms them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Texaco. Harm only comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and sitting inside the tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Highfields or out in Clarendon Park, does more harm than almost any other error.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits just inside your tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, wherever your car has come to rest across Leicestershire.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Highfields
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. Usually it is not the filling station: a driver buys a bottle driving home and tips it in outside the house.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Sparkenhoe Community Primary School the top-up is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Guthlaxton Street. Or a driver new to that flap refills the car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside The Lansdowne.
It occurs most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Highfields or the rest of Leicestershire, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Highfields: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Given any running time, it travels to the injection pump and each injector, having passed via the filter and pipework.
Maybe coming back from Prebend Gardens, or midway across Highfields, the engine may go rough, smoke, drop pace, light up your dash or stall. No restarting to check: pull over once it is safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
Highfields lies under 5 miles from the M1; if you were on it, leave at the next junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Highfields to the car park by Madrasa-e-Anjuman-e-Ghousia Mosque is a very different job from a run towards Leicester, under a mile away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has ended up, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage if it is caught soon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Highfields
Anywhere it has come to rest around Highfields — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street by African Community Centre — our van comes to the car. Which fluid was put in, about the quantity, plus if your engine has turned over: our technicians ask first, because those shape the job.
Next, emptying the tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Next, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced when it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a test of the car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers turn up, if your motor has not run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that is the final step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, outside Leicester or on a drive in Highfields. Before leaving, we confirm it's running smoothly with new diesel in. Because the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Highfields and where it is
Highfields is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Leicester in Leicestershire, with a mix of terraced housing and local amenities. Highfields sits at an elevation of around 80 metres, close to the city centre and nearby neighbourhoods such as Southfields and Spinney Hills. Highfields is a densely populated area, with a significant proportion of its residents living in terraced houses. Highfields is well connected to the rest of the country, being approximately 88 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Leicestershire, Highfields included
The vans that answer AdBlue call-outs in Highfields also cover the spots round it, Southfields, Spinney Hills and Leicester among them, and most of Leicestershire beyond, across the LE postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
No towing is needed. In Highfields, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: your vehicle is emptied where it stands, be it on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
Highfields: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Because each callouts vary, a single price would not be honest. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind St Peter.
Before any quote, not after, each call from Highfields opens with three questions: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. When those are answered, a range becomes a single firm number.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before anyone sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your policy whilst we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Highfields and still beside the car?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move available. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Highfields or anywhere in Leicestershire.