Jaywick: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the engine. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage only comes once your pump begins drawing it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully rinsed where the car stands in Jaywick. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Jaywick
Do these:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly how much, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting CO15 2, or whatever street lies nearest, and the van finds you straight — so call from wherever you stand.
Things not to do:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- The ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to run the pump.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't thin it.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance along Golf Green Road.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself at the kerbside.
Rolling your car off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Jaywick forecourt you are on, the Gulf included. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to the exhaust, treating what your motor emits. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, which is why a car filled in Bockings Elm yesterday and never started remains the straightforward case, provided nobody turns the key.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filter elements and narrow passages; and, because it attacks certain metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it stays in there. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight around Jaywick makes it worse. In that tank alone, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on BP's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that is the main issue. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside the tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain through the following tankful, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, and so watering it can't work. Hence the flush matters so much, and turning the key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other slip — in Great Clacton or the centre of Jaywick alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue waits just inside your tank, the simplest section of the entire system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has stopped around Essex.
Jaywick: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of cars put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and after dark the two may look identical. Nobody means it. Usually it is never the forecourt: someone buys a bottle driving home and pours it in at home.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Sir Martin Frobisher Academy, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills the car. Close to Jaywick Lane, someone tips a container in on the drive in the evening. Another version: darkness, a pub car park outside The Three Jays, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
Rented cars, new vehicles, company motors, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it most. Wherever you are in Jaywick or the remainder of Essex, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Jaywick?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Via the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it has gone.
You may notice the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Crossways Park or halfway across Jaywick. No restarting to check: stop when it is safe, then turn everything off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M2, under 50 miles from Jaywick, at the next junction and park safely, not driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system. That's why a hop across Jaywick to park near Jaywick Sands Village Sign and a drive of under 15 miles for Colchester are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. Permanent damage is very unusual when it's noticed early.
Jaywick: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped around Jaywick — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a road beside Jaywick Methodist Church — our van travels to the car. The work depends on three replies, and our engineers get before all else — which fluid was put in, the amount, and if your motor has run.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. A careful flush counts far more after AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't wash out on its own. Testing your car follows at the end, after fresh diesel goes in and the filter gets flushed or, where necessary, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians get there, if your motor has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, the fuel system is bled with new diesel. Whether it's a parking space outside Clacton-On-Sea or a drive around Jaywick, that is where our technicians start the engine and you drive off. It's tested on clean diesel to make sure it runs smoothly before our technicians go. No workshop is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Jaywick
Jaywick is a small coastal village in Essex, situated near the mouth of the River Colne and close to the larger town of Clacton-on-Sea. Jaywick sits at a low elevation of around 6 metres, making it a relatively flat and low-lying area. Jaywick is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock and is located near other nearby places such as Rush Green and Seawick. Jaywick has a population of approximately 1466 residents.
AdBlue drains in Jaywick and across Essex
Throughout the CO postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs in Jaywick reach most of Essex as well, Rush Green, Seawick and Clacton-on-Sea among them. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
Wherever the car sits — your drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our technicians empty it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Jaywick, a coastal village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Jaywick
No single price could be honest, because every job is different. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the car, since an open driveway is easier for a technician to get to safely than a tight space behind All Saints Church.
Before a figure, not afterwards, each enquiry from Jaywick opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and whether the engine ran. When they are answered, a range turns into a single firm number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As our engineer is travelling, check your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Still alongside your car around Jaywick?
Then, the best thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Jaywick or wherever in Essex, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether it ran.