Holybourne: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the motor. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. The trouble begins once it's sucked through your lines — it won't ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Holybourne. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Holybourne
Things to do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, take your keys away.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so do not bin it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting GU34 4, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it's pointless.
- Even a short distance along London Road is too far to drive the car.
- Emptying your tank yourself by the road is not worth trying.
The staff on duty at any Holybourne forecourt — the BP among them — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. Parked on your own drive? Then it remains exactly where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed directly to your exhaust, treating what your motor emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits underneath your diesel, which is how a car filled in Spitalhatch last night and never started remains the simple one, as long as no one turns your key.
Once it is sucked in, the damage comes in two forms. 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, so it keeps running on the components it gets to for as long as it remains there. Lines holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a vehicle parked around Holybourne. Just in that tank, it stays stable. Then there is the water: it offers no protection to the parts that need it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on another forecourt nearby's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that is the whole fault. Mixed into the diesel and sitting still, it's harmless at that stage; using the motor is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the next fill, and AdBlue separates back out of the diesel, and so watering it can't work. Hence the flush counts so much, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Wilsom or the heart of Holybourne alike.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever across Hampshire the car has stopped, an unrun engine means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to clear.
Holybourne: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's never the forecourt: a driver buys a bottle driving home and pours it in outside the house.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. The refill gets hurried outside Andrews' Endowed Church of England Primary School, because your dash flashed with a warning while the kids were dropped in. Close to Carpenters Close, someone tips a container in on the drive after work. Else, after dark outside The White Hart Inn, the car is refilled by a driver using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a fleet car, or the other vehicle in a family with both fuels — the vehicles people use least. Wherever you're around Holybourne or the rest of Hampshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Holybourne, and your engine started?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
You may see your motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Cannon's Copse or halfway across Holybourne. Once safe, pull over and switch everything off — with no restarting to test. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the M3, under 10 miles from Holybourne, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Holybourne to the car park by Holy Rood is a very different job from a run towards Winchester, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the engine has been run. When it is noticed quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Holybourne
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Holybourne: a side street near Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has been run, since those replies decide the work.
Next, draining your tank right there removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. What remains from AdBlue will not wash away unaided, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters far more with urea than with petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
The last step is to bleed the system on new diesel. Whether it is a parking space outside Alton or a driveway around Holybourne, that is where we fire it up and you set off. The check before we head off is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. Our technicians do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Holybourne and where it is
Holybourne is a village situated on the River Wey in Hampshire, with a mix of old and new buildings, including many detached homes. Holybourne sits at an elevation of 103 metres, near the South Downs National Park, and is close to nearby places such as Cuckoos Corner and Neatham. Holybourne has a population of around 923 residents, who enjoy the village's riverside setting and proximity to the city of Winchester, which is 17.3 miles away. Holybourne is also within commuting distance of London, being approximately 42.6 miles from the capital.
AdBlue drains across Holybourne and Hampshire
Cuckoos Corner, Neatham and Anstey are among the places near Holybourne that the same teams reach, along with much of Hampshire further out, throughout the GU postcode area. Near a boundary, or somewhere awkward to explain? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
No towing is needed. In Holybourne, a village, a mobile service works: the car is emptied on the spot, whether in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Holybourne: the cost of fixing it
Since the jobs differ, a flat price wouldn't be fair. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Holybourne Theatre.
Ahead of any quote, never after, each call from Holybourne begins with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether it ran. Those replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, it is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Check your policy while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In Holybourne and still alongside the vehicle?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, right now, the best thing you can do. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Holybourne or wherever within Hampshire, after you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran.