AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Ingthorpe? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your motor off then keep your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens till your motor sucks it through. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Ingthorpe. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ingthorpe
Do:
- Remove the keys, and that stops someone switching the power on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so don't bin it away.
- Call right where you are. Say a PE9 4 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the vehicle: your engine remains off.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, so it's pointless.
- Even a short way up Ingthorpe Lane is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The staff working at any Ingthorpe forecourt — the BP included — will usually help pushing it clear if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your engine. Stored in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and none of that was meant to travel that way.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It drops, since it's denser than diesel, and pools down where the pickup draws its supply from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Tinwell last night and hasn't turned since. The liquid waits at the base of your tank, undrawn — though it would be first through if the engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage come from there. It eats at certain metals found in fuel components, attacking any part it touches till it's removed from the system. And when the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, leaving it till morning in Ingthorpe leaves things worse. Inside that tank only, waiting does nothing. Then there's the water: it offers no protection to the parts that rely on it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
A problem of thin fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Morrisons. Damage only comes from running on it. Mixed into the diesel and left in the tank, it causes none.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. It cannot simply be run through, because it does not burn. Crystals and corrosion remain after the next fill, and AdBlue splits again from your diesel, and so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush counts more, and turning your key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Stamford or the centre of Ingthorpe equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Rutland the vehicle is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Ingthorpe?
It's not on purpose. Many cars keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel inlet, occasionally under a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Great Casterton Church of England Primary School the top-up is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Water Lane. Another pattern: darkness, the car park by The Crown, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
The least known vehicles get it the most — hire cars, new cars, company ones, and the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels. An identical mistake, an identical first step — leave it off — anywhere you happen to be around Ingthorpe or the remainder of Rutland.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Ingthorpe?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Given any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, having passed through your filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Tickencote Laund, say, or part way across Ingthorpe. No starting it again to check: pull over when it is safe, then turn everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the Great North Road, under 15 miles from Ingthorpe, the first junction is where to exit, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Ingthorpe to the car park by Saint Peter and Saint Paul is a very different job from a run towards Peterborough, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the motor has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the car has stopped. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage if it's noticed early.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Ingthorpe
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a road beside Parish Church of St. Peter, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in Ingthorpe, and the van comes to it. The job rests on three replies, which our technicians get first — what was put in, the amount, and whether your motor has run.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through because residue won't flush away unaided. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Not run? Then expect roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The final step is to bleed your system on fresh diesel. After that we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Stamford or a driveway around Ingthorpe. It's checked on new diesel to be sure it runs properly before our technicians go. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Ingthorpe itself
Ingthorpe is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Rutland, with an elevation of around 50 metres. Ingthorpe lies near the villages of Great Casterton, Tickencote, and Little Casterton, and is approximately 13.7 miles from Peterborough. Ingthorpe has a population of around 600 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Ingthorpe is located in the East Midlands region, about 82 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains across Ingthorpe and Rutland
AdBlue jobs around Ingthorpe are passed to vans that serve the places near it — Great Casterton, Tickencote as well as Little Casterton — and much of Rutland beyond, throughout PE postcodes. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
A van that comes to you fits Ingthorpe, a rural hamlet: there's no need to take your car to us, since we drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Ingthorpe
Not one flat price could be honest, since each job is different. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the car, because an open drive is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Roman Villa (Site of).
Which fluid was put in, how much, and whether it ran: each Ingthorpe call begins with exactly that, before a quote, never afterwards. Their answers shrink a range down to one number.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before a van leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Ingthorpe: still alongside the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Ingthorpe or wherever in Rutland.