Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hillpound
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and the ignition as well. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just comes when your pump begins drawing it. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully cleaned where the car sits around Hillpound. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hillpound
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take your keys away.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, so don't throw it out.
- Call right where you are. Say a SO32 2 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- Switching the key to ignition alone starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it's pointless.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance up Droxford Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Moving your vehicle off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Hillpound forecourt you are on, the Sainsbury's or any other. At home, your car remains exactly as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust to clean the gases. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Heavier than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the very spot the intake sucks from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Upper Swanmore last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It does two kinds of damage 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 components it hits for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a car parked around Hillpound with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's just in that tank, it doesn't. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Premier's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that's the whole fault. No harm comes as long as it sits unused, blended into your diesel — only once the motor works on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Waltham Chase or the centre of Hillpound, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not stay blended, so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Wherever around Hampshire your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Hillpound
It is not on purpose. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Swanmore Church of England Aided Primary School. Someone pours the container in at home, right off Mislingford Road, as the day ends. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Rising Sun, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the other car in a family with one of each fuels — the cars people know least. Wherever you are around Hillpound or the remainder of Hampshire, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Hillpound, and the engine started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Swanmore Recreation Ground, perhaps, or part way across Hillpound. Stop when safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Hillpound lies under 5 miles from the M27; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Hillpound to the car park by Swanmore Methodist Church is a very different job from a run towards Southampton, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once the motor has run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has stopped. When it is spotted early, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Hillpound: what it takes
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Hillpound: a side street near Swanmore Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies decide the work, and so before anything else we ask what went in, roughly what quantity, plus whether the engine has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out together after your tank is emptied, on the spot. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out unaided, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where the motor hasn't run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to prime your system on clean diesel. Whether it is a parking space outside Botley or a driveway around Hillpound, that is where our technicians start the engine and you head off. Our engineers check it runs smoothly on fresh diesel before we go. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Hillpound, for a moment
Hillpound is a suburban area in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of 44 metres, approximately 10 miles north of Southampton. Hillpound is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential development. Hillpound sits within a network of nearby places, including Hill Grove, Swanmore, and Mislingford, and is about 60 miles south-west of London.
AdBlue drains across Hillpound and Hampshire
AdBlue call-outs in Hillpound go to teams that cover the places around it — Hill Grove, Swanmore plus Mislingford — and most of Hampshire beyond, across SO postcodes. Near a border, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
Hillpound 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 is, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Hillpound
Since each callouts vary, a single price would not be honest. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open driveway is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Swanmore War Memorial.
Ahead of a quote, not after, every enquiry from Hillpound begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the quantity, plus if the engine ran. With those replies, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told our quote by phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
In Hillpound and still beside the car?
Not touching the car is, right now, the best thing open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Hillpound or wherever in Hampshire, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.