AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Holmley Common? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just starts once your pump starts drawing it. Caught before the motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Holmley Common. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Holmley Common: the first few minutes
Do these:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, pull the keys away.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting S18 2, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your car: the engine remains off.
- Many diesels run their pump the moment the ignition goes on, so leave the car off.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is wasted.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch up Brookview Court.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the verge.
The staff working at any Holmley Common forecourt — the Sainsbury's included — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the car exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, where it treats the gas. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate rather than blending — quite unlike fuel. It sinks, because it is heavier than diesel, and pools low where the intake takes its fuel from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Summerwood Top overnight and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of that tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through once the engine starts, before any diesel at all.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it eats at certain metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains inside. Lines holding AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car parked around Holmley Common. Just in your tank, it stays stable. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water gives none of that, and that is a second form of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
A fault of thinned fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Total. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's in your tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot just be run through, because it does not burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates back out — and the following tankful won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Holmley Common or out in Coal Aston, does more harm than almost any other slip.
As with petrol, there's good news. Anywhere in Derbyshire your car has stopped, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Holmley Common
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. A bottle bought while heading home and poured in at home, rather than at the filling station, is the usual story.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Lenthall Infant and Nursery School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Cecil Road. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up the car in dim light, parked in the car park by Coach and Horses.
Hired vehicles, brand-new vehicles, company cars, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least known vehicles see it most. Wherever you're around Holmley Common or the rest of Derbyshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Holmley Common?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Via your filter, through the pipework, and — with any running time — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's where it has gone.
Rough running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any may appear, perhaps part way across Holmley Common or returning from Dronfield Scout Activity Centre. Once you safely can, pull over and switch it off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M1, under 10 miles from Holmley Common, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Holmley Common to the car park by St Pauls is a very different job from a run towards Sheffield, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. Permanent damage is very uncommon if it's caught quickly.
Holmley Common: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Anywhere it has come to rest in Holmley Common — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Contact Club — the van comes to your car. The job depends on three answers, which our engineers ask for first — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if your motor has turned over.
Right there, your tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians turn up, provided the motor hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
Priming the system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, outside Dronfield or on a driveway around Holmley Common. Before we leave, our engineers check it is running properly with fresh diesel in. Since the job is done in full 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 Holmley Common
Holmley Common is a suburban area in Derbyshire, situated near the River Don and close to the city of Sheffield. Holmley Common has a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities, set in a riverside location at an elevation of around 177 metres. Holmley Common is part of the wider Sheffield urban area, with nearby places including Snape Hill, Bowshaw, and Dronfield.
AdBlue drains across Holmley Common and Derbyshire
AdBlue jobs in Holmley Common are passed to teams that serve the places near it — Snape Hill, Bowshaw as well as Dronfield — and most of Derbyshire further out, throughout S postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
Wherever the vehicle stands — your driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our technicians empty it there, with no need to take it to us; that suits Holmley Common, a residential suburb, well.
Holmley Common: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Not one single price could be honest, because each job differs. The price changes first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.
That is why every call from Holmley Common starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. Those answers narrow a range down to one number.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Holmley Common: still beside the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Holmley Common or anywhere across Derbyshire.