Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hole Bottom
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The trouble begins once it is pulled through your pump — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Hole Bottom, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the engine has run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Hole Bottom
Things to do:
- Remove the keys, and that stops someone turning the electrics on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the amount, and so don't bin it out.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting OL14 5, or just the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the car.
Never:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to reposition the car.
- Switching the key to ignition alone sets the pump going on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance up Stansfield Hall Road.
- Draining the tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Rolling the car away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Hole Bottom forecourt you are on, the Shell or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave the car just where it stands.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. It sinks, since it's heavier than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Harley Wood last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Once it's sucked in, the harm takes two forms. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it reaches until it's cleared completely. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and lodge in tiny passages. Lines carrying AdBlue mean damage by morning for a car parked in Hole Bottom. Just inside the tank, it stays stable. Then there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that rely on it most — the injection pump and every injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Matthew Sheard & Sons and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's in the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It does not burn, so it can't simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits back out — and the next fill won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Hole Bottom or out in Kilnhurst, costs more than almost any other mistake.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue stays in it — anywhere in West Yorkshire the car has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Hole Bottom: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, now and then behind a single flap — may look the same. No one means it; many layouts invite it. It mostly happens outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. The top-up gets rushed outside St Joseph's Roman Catholic Voluntary Academy, because the dash flashed with a warning as the children were taken off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Park Road. Another pattern: dim light, the car park outside Catholic Club, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
Hired motors, brand-new vehicles, fleet cars, or the second car in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles get it most. Wherever you're in Hole Bottom or the remainder of West Yorkshire, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Hole Bottom?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. It has been drawn through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Denis' Field, say, or part way across Hole Bottom. Stop when it is safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M62, under 10 miles from Hole Bottom, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That's why crossing Hole Bottom to park near Majid-e-Hamza Mosque and a drive of under 15 miles towards Bradford are very distinct jobs. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has run there is more of it. If it is noticed quickly, lasting damage is very uncommon.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Hole Bottom
A street beside St Joseph's, a drive, a layby or a filling station: wherever the vehicle has come to rest around Hole Bottom, we come to it. Three replies shape the work, and so first our technicians ask what went in, roughly the amount, and if the engine has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one when the tank is emptied, on the spot. Residue from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced if it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a test of the car. If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, by Todmorden or on a drive around Hole Bottom. The test before we leave is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. Our technicians do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Hole Bottom itself
Hole Bottom is a suburban area situated on the riverside in West Yorkshire, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 4201 residents. Hole Bottom sits at an elevation of 137 metres, near the towns of Priestwell and Todmorden, and is approximately 14.8 miles from Bradford. Hole Bottom forms part of the wider urban area along the river, with nearby Millwood also being a notable neighbouring community.
AdBlue drains across Hole Bottom and West Yorkshire
Priestwell, Todmorden and Millwood are among the places near Hole Bottom that the same vans serve, together with much of West Yorkshire further out, throughout the OL postcode area. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No towing is needed. In Hole Bottom, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: your car is drained on the spot, whether on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Hole Bottom
There's no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. Three things change the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.
That is why every call from Hole Bottom starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it's run. Those replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You get that quote by phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In Hole Bottom and still next to the vehicle?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move available. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Hole Bottom or wherever within West Yorkshire.