Kingshill: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens until the engine pulls it round. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle sits around Kingshill. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Kingshill: the first few minutes
To do:
- Pocket the keys, which stops anyone switching the power on.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so don't throw it out.
- Tell us a postcode starting SN1 5, or whatever street is nearest, and our van finds you directly — so ring wherever you stand.
Don't do these:
- Shifting the car just a short way is no reason to start the motor.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, so leave the car off.
- Adding more diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance down Westcott Street.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
The staff on duty at any Kingshill forecourt — the Texaco included — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. At your own drive, do not move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Kept in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust to clean the gases. No part in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of it was meant to go that way.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the very place the pickup sucks from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Okus yesterday and never switched on stays the simple case, as long as no one touches your key.
Two kinds of harm come from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a vehicle parked in Kingshill with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's only inside the tank, it doesn't. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, and that is a second form of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Sainsbury's. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's inside the tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Whether your car sits in Bridgemead or the centre of Kingshill, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake, and the flush matters more. Why: it won't stay blended, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following fill.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Anywhere in Wiltshire the car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Kingshill?
It's not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. It usually takes place at home, from a bottle bought en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Robert Le Kyng Primary School the refill is hurried. After work, a container is tipped in on a driveway near Westcott Place. Otherwise, after dark by The Greyhound, your car gets topped up by someone using that flap the first time.
Hired cars, new vehicles, fleet cars, or the second vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least familiar cars see it the most. Keep it off: that's the first response to the same mistake, wherever in Kingshill or the rest of Wiltshire you are.
Kingshill: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been drawn through your filter and the fuel lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from GWR Park, say, or midway across Kingshill. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep the car off rather than testing it again. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Kingshill lies under 3 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and stop safely rather than carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. That is why crossing Kingshill to park near International Mother Language Day Monument and a drive of under 50 miles for Oxford are such different jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the motor has been run. Noticed early, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Kingshill
A street beside Sir Daniel Gooch, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: wherever the vehicle has stopped in Kingshill, our engineers come to it. Three replies shape the job, and so before anything else we ask which fluid went in, roughly what quantity, plus whether your engine has turned over.
Then that tank is drained where your car sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, so the whole system gets a full flush, which matters much more with urea than with petrol. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or changed if it must be. After that clean diesel, and then a check of the vehicle. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers turn up, if your engine has not run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to prime the system on new diesel. After that our technicians start it and you drive off, whether from a parking bay at Swindon or a driveway in Kingshill. The test before we leave is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Kingshill, briefly
Kingshill is a suburban area in Wiltshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 98 metres, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Kingshill lies within commuting distance of major cities, including Oxford, which is approximately 26.7 miles away, and London, which is around 71.8 miles to the east. Kingshill is part of the larger urban landscape of Swindon, with nearby areas including Even Swindon and New Town. Kingshill has a population of around 9684 people, making it a sizeable residential community.
AdBlue drains across Kingshill and Wiltshire
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around Kingshill also cover the locations about it, Even Swindon, Swindon and New Town among them, and most of Wiltshire beyond, across the SN postcode area. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
A mobile service suits Kingshill, a residential suburb: you have no need to take your vehicle to us, since our technicians empty it there, in a driveway, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Kingshill
There is no honest single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. What moves the cost is, firstly, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Locomotive turntable.
That is why each call from Kingshill starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. When those are answered, a range becomes one firm number.
Our price is given during the call, before a van sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your policy while we are on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Alongside the vehicle in Kingshill, still?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Kingshill or wherever in Wiltshire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.