AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Holme Green? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave the motor off and keep your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the fuel system draws it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your car stands around Holme Green. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Holme Green, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
Do:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting RG40 3, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the car: the motor remains off.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment your ignition goes on, so leave it off.
- Adding more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Even a short stretch along Easthampstead Road is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Draining your tank yourself by the road is not worth trying.
The staff working at any Holme Green filling station — the Shell among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Stored in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust to clean the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays separate rather than blending — entirely unlike fuel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Wokingham yesterday evening and not started since is the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but when your motor turns, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
From there it does two kinds of damage. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filters and narrow channels; and, since it eats at some metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it stays in there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight in Holme Green leaves it worse. Inside your tank only, time costs nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
Petrol put into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that's the main problem. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's inside your tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It does not burn, and so it can't just be run through. Whether the car sits in Amen Corner or the heart of Holme Green, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush matters for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in it — wherever in Berkshire your car sits.
Holme Green: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, now and then under one flap — can appear the same. No one means it; many designs invite it. A bottle picked up when driving home and poured in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical route.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Floreat Montague Park Primary School and Nursery the refill is rushed. Someone tips the bottle in at home, right off Redlake Lane, as the day ends. Else, in dim light outside The White Horse Inn, your vehicle gets refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
It takes place 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. Same mistake, same first step — leave it switched off — anywhere you happen to be around Holme Green or the rest of Berkshire.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Holme Green?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. It's been sucked through the fuel filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Jennett's Park Country Park, perhaps, or midway across Holme Green. Once you safely can, pull over and turn everything off — without turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of that through.
Holme Green lies under 3 miles from the A329(M); if you were on it, leave by the next junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That's why a hop across Holme Green to park near Caudwell Hall and a drive of under 50 miles for Westminster are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after your engine has been running. Very seldom does it leave lasting damage when it's noticed soon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Holme Green: what it takes
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Holme Green: a side street near Oakwood Youth Challenge, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three answers, and our technicians get before all else — what was put in, the quantity, and if the engine has run.
Then the tank is drained where the car sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Not run? In that case count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that is the last step. Then our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay by Wokingham or a driveway around Holme Green. It's checked on new diesel to make sure it runs smoothly before our technicians leave. Because the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Holme Green itself
Holme Green is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Berkshire, with an elevation of around 65 metres. Holme Green lies near several other small settlements, including Gardeners Green, Chapel Green, and Heathlands. Holme Green is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is located approximately 30 miles from central London. Holme Green remains a quiet residential area with a population of around 556 people.
Holme Green and Berkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Holme Green also cover the spots round it, Gardeners Green, Chapel Green and Heathlands among them, and most of Berkshire beyond, across the RG postcode area. Assuming won't help by a border or somewhere tricky to pin down; ring and ask.
Holme Green is a rural hamlet, 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 sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Holme Green: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Not one flat price could be honest, since each job is different. What shifts the price is, firstly, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Oakwood Climbing Centre.
Ahead of a figure, not after, every enquiry from Holme Green opens with three checks: the fuel, the amount, and if it ran. With those replies, the range shrinks to one fixed number.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, it is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As the van is on the way, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
Holme Green: still beside the vehicle?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in Holme Green or wherever in Berkshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.