AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kingsley? Don't Start It
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you start if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when your fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Kingsley, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your engine has run. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Kingsley, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
Things to do:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents someone switching the electrics on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Call right where you are. Quote a WA6 8 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Never:
- Moving the vehicle even a few yards is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Turning your key to ignition alone sets your pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way down The Brow.
- Emptying that tank yourself by the road isn't worth trying.
Rolling the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Kingsley forecourt you are on, the Wharton Lake Garage included. At home, the car stays exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps apart instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its supply from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Crowton last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
Two kinds of harm come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it attacks some metals, every part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays inside. Overnight, a car parked in Kingsley with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it is only inside your tank, it doesn't. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Texaco, and this problem is diluted fuel. No damage is done while it stays put, mixed into the diesel — only once the engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot just be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the next tankful, and AdBlue splits back from the diesel, so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush matters more, and turning the key "to see" costs more here than almost any other slip — in Hatchmere or the heart of Kingsley alike.
As with petrol, there's good news. Emptying a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and without start-up, the AdBlue stays in there — anywhere around Cheshire the vehicle sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Kingsley: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Mostly it's never the forecourt: a driver picks up a bottle driving home and pours it in at home.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Kingsley St John's CofE Primary School the top-up is rushed. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive near High Bank Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Red Bull, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up most in a rental, a new car, a company car, or the other vehicle in a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers know the least. Wherever you're around Kingsley or the remainder of Cheshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Kingsley: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. The fuel filter and lines have had it sucked through, and some running takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
You may notice the motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Community Peace Garden or halfway across Kingsley. No restarting to test: pull over when safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
Kingsley sits under 3 miles from the M56; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Kingsley to the car park by Kingsley Village Hall is a very different job from a run towards Chester, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once the engine has run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Noticed early, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Kingsley
Anywhere it has come to rest around Kingsley — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a street by The Hurst Methodist Church — the van comes to your car. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether the engine has been run, because those replies settle this work.
Next, draining the tank on the spot removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. What remains from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts far more with urea than for petrol. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians turn up, provided your motor has not run. The equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on fresh diesel. After that we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Delamere or a drive in Kingsley. The check before our engineers leave is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Kingsley
Kingsley is a village in Cheshire, situated inland at an elevation of 55 metres, approximately 10.5 miles from Chester. Kingsley has a population of around 1237 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Kingsley is surrounded by other small villages and hamlets, including Cooksongreen, Newton, and Fivecrosses, and is about 162.2 miles from London.
Kingsley and Cheshire: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue calls around Kingsley also cover the places about it, Cooksongreen, Newton and Fivecrosses among them, and most of Cheshire beyond, across the WA postcode area. Phone and check instead of guessing when you are by a border, or somewhere tricky to explain.
A mobile service suits Kingsley, a rural village: there's no need to take your vehicle to us, because we drain it there, in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Kingsley: the cost of fixing it
Not one single price could be fair, since each job is different. Three things shift the cost: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether a van can reach it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Saint John The Evangelist, Kingsley.
For that reason, every enquiry from Kingsley begins with the identical trio — what went in, how much, whether it ran — before a figure. Once they are answered, a range turns into one fixed figure.
The price is given during the call, before a van sets off; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Still beside the car in Kingsley?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the most useful thing open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Kingsley or anywhere across Cheshire.