Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Jumpers Common
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you start if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm happens until your motor pulls it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Jumpers Common, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your motor has been run. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Jumpers Common
Do these:
- Take your keys out, so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- Which fluid, and about how much amount? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Ring just where you are. Say a BH23 2 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Not to do:
- No starting the motor — not briefly, not to shift your car.
- Switching the key to ignition alone sets the pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in more diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Driftwood Park.
- Beside the road, do not try emptying it on your own.
The staff on duty at any Jumpers Common filling station — the Murco among them — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. At your own driveway, don't move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. From a dedicated tank it goes straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It does not blend. Once it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake takes its supply from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Blackwater overnight and has not been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — but it will be the first thing through if your motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
After it is sucked in, the harm comes in two forms. It eats at some metals used in fuel systems, working on any part it reaches till it's cleared from the system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Lines holding AdBlue mean harm by morning for a car sitting in Jumpers Common. Just inside your tank, it stays the same. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel running past them, so the water part harms them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
A problem of thin fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol from the Esso. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in your tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It can't just be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Holdenhurst or the middle of Jumpers Common.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere around Dorset your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still in the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Jumpers Common
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle grabbed on the journey home, not at the filling station.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. Rushing, outside Twynham Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone tops up your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off The Grove. One more version: dim light, the car park outside The Stourvale, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the other car of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people know the least. Wherever you are around Jumpers Common or the remainder of Dorset, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Jumpers Common, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. With any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, having passed through your filter and pipework.
You may notice your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Grove Copse or halfway across Jumpers Common. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep the vehicle off instead of testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M27, under 15 miles from Jumpers Common, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That's why a hop across Jumpers Common to park near The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a drive of under 25 miles for Southampton are such separate jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it is caught soon.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Jumpers Common: what it takes
Wherever it has come to rest around Jumpers Common — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road beside St Georges Chapel — the van comes to the vehicle. The job depends on three replies, and we ask for before all else — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if the motor has turned over.
Then your tank is cleared where the vehicle sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that's the final step. You head off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Jumpers Common or in a bay outside Christchurch. Before leaving, our technicians check it's running properly with clean diesel in. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Jumpers Common
Jumpers Common is a coastal suburban area in Dorset, situated near the cities of Southampton and Bournemouth. Jumpers Common lies at a low elevation of around 4 metres, close to the sea and near other local places such as St Catherines Hill and Fairmile. Jumpers Common has a population of approximately 4496 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Jumpers Common is also within commuting distance of London, being around 89 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Jumpers Common and Dorset
St Catherines Hill, Fairmile and Iford are among the towns near Jumpers Common that the same vans serve, together with most of Dorset further out, over the BH postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Anywhere your vehicle sits — your driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a filling station — our technicians drain it there, with no need to take it to us; that suits Jumpers Common, a residential suburb, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Jumpers Common: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single quote, because the jobs are not the same. What changes the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Christchurch Spiritualist Centre.
What was put in, what quantity, plus whether it ran: each Jumpers Common call opens by asking precisely that, ahead of a quote, not after. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
The quote is quoted during the call, before anyone leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. While our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
In Jumpers Common and still next to your car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Jumpers Common or wherever within Dorset.