Jericho: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that is how you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble only comes once your pump starts drawing it. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Jericho. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Jericho: the first few minutes
Do:
- Pull your keys out, so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, so do not bin it away.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting BL9 7, or the name of the nearest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Moving your car just a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Keep it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way down Rochdale Old Road.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it yourself.
Rolling your vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Jericho forecourt you're on, the Texaco or any other. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It sinks, because it's heavier than diesel, and settles down where the pickup takes its fuel from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Topping Fold last night and has not been started since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, untouched — but it would be the first thing through if the motor runs, before any diesel at all.
After it is pulled in, the damage takes two forms. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it's flushed out. Lines holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car parked in Jericho. Just in your tank, it stays the same. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a second kind of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the EG On the Move. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's in your tank it does no harm; the harm comes from running your motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Whether the vehicle is in Fern Grove or the heart of Jericho, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts more. Why: it will not stay blended, and so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere your car has come to rest across Greater Manchester.
Jericho: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles rests right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is not the forecourt: someone buys a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. Rushing, outside Fairfield Community Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills your car. Near Holden Avenue, a driver pours a bottle in at home in the evening. One more pattern: darkness, a pub car park by The Church Inn, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new vehicle, a company car, or the other vehicle of a home with both fuel types — the cars people know the least. Wherever you're around Jericho or the remainder of Greater Manchester, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Jericho?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. With any running, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, after passing via your filter and lines.
Watch for rough running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Broad Oak Wood, say, or part way across Jericho. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Keep the car off instead of testing it again. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M66, under a mile from Jericho, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Jericho to the car park by St John the Baptist is a very different job from a run towards Manchester, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Jericho
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Jericho: a side street close to Chesham Fold Community Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies decide the work, and so before anything else we ask which fluid got in, roughly the amount, and whether the motor has run.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. A careful flush matters much more after AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains will not clear out on its own. Next, the filter: cleaned, or changed when it must be. Then fresh diesel, and then a check of the car. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime the system, and that's the last step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, by Castleton or on a drive in Jericho. Our engineers confirm it runs properly on new diesel before we leave. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Jericho, for a moment
Jericho is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 149 metres. Jericho lies approximately 8.5 miles from Manchester and is surrounded by nearby places such as Woodgate Hill, Summit, and Prettywood. Jericho has a population of around 2103 residents and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Jericho is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 170.1 miles.
AdBlue drains around Jericho and across Greater Manchester
AdBlue jobs in Jericho are passed to vans that cover the places around it — Woodgate Hill, Summit as well as Prettywood — and much of Greater Manchester further out, across BL postcodes. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of guessing.
A van that comes to you suits Jericho, a residential suburb: there's no need to take your car to us, since our technicians empty it there, on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Jericho: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, and so no single quote would be fair. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind St George.
For that reason, each call from Jericho begins with the same trio — which fluid went in, what quantity, if it ran — before a figure. Their answers shrink a range right down to a single number.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, check your policy: many include misfuelling.
Still alongside the car in Jericho?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether the engine ran is everything our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Greater Manchester, Jericho included.