Hoo St Werburgh: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your engine off then leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when your fuel system draws it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where your car stands in Hoo St Werburgh. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Hoo St Werburgh: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Remove the keys, which stops anyone turning the electrics on.
- If you're anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly what volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and we can see.
- Give us a postcode starting ME3 9, or whatever street lies nearest, and the van finds you straight — so call wherever you stand.
Do not:
- No starting the engine — not for a second, not to reposition the car.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance down Church Street is too far to drive it.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the roadside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll the vehicle away from the pumps if you are on a forecourt in Hoo St Werburgh, whether it's the JET or somewhere else. Parked on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to your exhaust, treating what the motor lets out. No part inside a fuel pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of it was meant to travel through one.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays apart instead of blending — quite unlike fuel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Lower Upnor last night and never started remains the straightforward case, provided nobody turns the key.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it is cleared out. By daybreak, a car parked in Hoo St Werburgh with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it is only in that tank, nothing changes. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a fault of thin fuel. No harm comes as long as it sits unused, blended into your diesel — only once your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the next tankful won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Hoo St Werburgh or out in Sharnal Street, does more harm than almost any other error.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Wherever around Kent the vehicle has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Hoo St Werburgh?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles rests right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought while heading home and tipped in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the typical route.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Hoo St Werburgh Primary School and the Marlborough. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Bell's Lane. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Five Bells, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same mistake, an identical first step — keep it off — anywhere you happen to be in Hoo St Werburgh or the rest of Kent.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Hoo St Werburgh?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. The fuel filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
You may notice your motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Hoo Village Centre Gardens or halfway across Hoo St Werburgh. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Leave the car off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
If you were on the M2, under 5 miles from Hoo St Werburgh, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system, and so heading for Southend-on-Sea, under 15 miles away, gives a much larger job than crossing Hoo St Werburgh to the car park by Holy Family. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where your car has stopped, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Long-term damage is very unusual when it's noticed soon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Hoo St Werburgh: what it takes
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Hoo St Werburgh: a side street close to Hoo Village Institute Social Club, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work rests on three answers, and our technicians get before all else — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if the engine has turned over.
Then your tank is emptied where the car sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. A test of the vehicle follows at the end, after fresh diesel is added and the filter gets flushed or, if needed, replaced. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians turn up, if your engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Finally, your system is bled with clean diesel. Then we start it and you set off, whether from a parking space by Gillingham (Kent) or a drive around Hoo St Werburgh. We make sure it runs properly on fresh diesel before leaving. No garage is needed at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Hoo St Werburgh and where it is
Hoo St Werburgh is a village located on the coast of Kent, situated near the mouth of the Thames estuary at an elevation of around 13 metres. Hoo St Werburgh has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the village is close to nearby places such as Broad Street and Kingsnorth. Hoo St Werburgh is also within commuting distance of London, approximately 30 miles to the west, and the city of Southend-on-Sea is about 10 miles to the east. Hoo St Werburgh has a population of around 2397 people, according to recent estimates.
Hoo St Werburgh and Kent: AdBlue drains across the area
Our teams that answer AdBlue call-outs around Hoo St Werburgh also cover the spots about it, Broad Street, Kingsnorth and Chattenden among them, and most of Kent beyond, across the ME postcode area. Guessing doesn't help close to a border or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
Wherever the car stands — your drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a filling station — we drain it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits Hoo St Werburgh, a coastal village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Hoo St Werburgh: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. What moves the price is, first, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Hoo Library.
With that in mind, every enquiry from Hoo St Werburgh opens with the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, whether it ran — before a figure. Once those are known, a range becomes a single firm figure.
Our price is quoted during the call, before a van leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your insurance while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Hoo St Werburgh and still next to your car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Hoo St Werburgh or wherever within Kent.