Kingswear: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Find Your Situation
What to do about AdBlue in a diesel tank depends on one thing more than any other: whether the engine has run since it was put in. Out in Hillhead or here in Kingswear, an unstarted engine should remain unrun. Phone 0333 366 0103 with your key and engine still off. In Kingswear, that is typically emptied and cleaned on the spot. If it's run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The job is bigger, but the first step is the same.
Match what happened to a situation from the ones below, anywhere in Devon you happen to be.
On a Kingswear forecourt with AdBlue in a diesel
The cap you unscrewed was the wrong one — and you just notice it as you are standing at the petrol pump, bottle or the nozzle in hand. Anywhere around Kingswear, then — Dart Fuel Barge, BP, or somewhere else close by.
Meaning? Finding out here is the best it gets. The AdBlue is inside the tank and nowhere else. Nothing has drawn it in.
What to do: do not get back in and start it to clear the pump. Ring us from the forecourt after the vehicle sits in a bay — the attendants will lend a hand to push it — and keep the receipt. If it can't be shifted, it can be drained at the petrol pump: the equipment is explosion-proof and fine on a busy forecourt.
AdBlue in your diesel tank on a Kingswear drive?
Several days had passed with the warning light on. Only at the recycling bin, the empty container in hand, did you glance back at the cap you'd opened at the drive. Right off The Square is no less likely from anywhere.
Put simply: if the car has not moved since, it's almost equal to spotting it at the forecourt. AdBlue does not mix with diesel; it sinks to the bottom of that tank and waits there. Overnight does not change that.
Put your keys indoors tonight — otherwise a person might drive it off at breakfast — then call us. Your drive is where it gets drained, whether around Kingswear or Dartmouth. The pumps are quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Kingswear: drove off with AdBlue in a diesel?
Filled up, pulled away, and before long the motor was running unevenly, smoking, losing power, or lighting up the dash. Possibly it was on Church Hill, maybe on the way out towards Plymouth, under 50 miles away.
Meaning? The fuel pump has sucked the AdBlue in. The injection pump and every injector get it too on a bigger trip, once your filter and lines have it. It goes deeper with every mile driven and each restart.
Pull in safely — that is the first step — then switch everything off. Exit at the next junction — not the services beyond — if you're on the M5, under 25 miles from Kingswear. Restarting it to check achieves nothing — AdBlue never clears itself. Let us know the distance driven as you ring.
A hire or company car with AdBlue in the wrong tank?
You've had the vehicle barely a week. Your own car either does without AdBlue or puts it somewhere different, so no one told you the AdBlue inlet was just beside your diesel. Throughout Devon, no one is immune.
What it means: the same as the situations above, depending on whether it's run, with one more step. Any work on the car often requires the owner's approval under hire or company agreements.
Sorting it before we arrives is faster, so ring the hire company or your fleet manager, and then us. Stuck by St Thomas of Canterbury or outside Paignton till the firm answers, your car remains switched off throughout.
Kingswear: unsure if it was AdBlue in the diesel tank?
"I think so" is sometimes the most honest answer there is. What cap was taken off, you can't say; but the bottle weighs less than expected, and a whiff of ammonia hangs by the filler. A rushed stop by the gates of St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Primary School, Dartmouth, or a visit to a friend in Dittisham: both fit.
Meaning? Spills outside the inlet never reach your motor at all. If it is inside your diesel tank, though, that changes. Any AdBlue in the tank would be pulled in by firing up the car, and the start would not settle which it is in any case.
Take it that it got in, and don't start the key. Phone with what you saw: we'd rather find a tank free of AdBlue than drain one once the motor has run.
The common ground in every Kingswear AdBlue drain
Whichever situation you are in, the job starts the same way. Three questions are asked once we reach the car — on a forecourt, a drive, a road by Bayards Cove Fort or the car park outside Royal Dart Hotel: the fluid, the quantity, and whether the motor has been started. Your price comes on the call, ahead of anyone setting off, and those replies set the work.
Draining your tank comes first, followed by a full flush — more vital after urea than after petrol, since crystals and corrosion will not go on their own, no matter how long it sits. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The majority of unstarted vehicles are a half-hour job from the moment we arrive.
Firing it up comes last. Our check that it runs properly on fresh diesel comes before our engineers go. If it's caught soon, the vehicle very seldom has lasting damage, and the whole job happens where it is. Nothing is paid upfront, payment is made on the day, and you receive what your insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Dig out your insurance before we arrive: misfuelling cover comes included in plenty of policies.
About Kingswear
Kingswear is a coastal village in Devon, situated on the western bank of the River Dart, opposite the town of Dartmouth. Kingswear sits at a low elevation of around 9 metres, with its predominant housing being flats, and is located near other villages such as Warfleet and Stoke Fleming. Kingswear is also close to the city of Plymouth, which is approximately 25 miles away, and is about 170 miles from London. Kingswear remains a small residential community with a population of around 953 people.
AdBlue drains in Kingswear, and across Devon too
As a coastal village, Kingswear has the same vans as the surrounding towns — Stoke Fleming, Warfleet — all the way through TQ postcodes. A postcode starting TQ6 0 is the quickest way to tell us where you are.
No towing is required, be it parked in the centre of Kingswear or on a lay-by en route to Kingswear Wood, so leave it put. We drain the vehicle where it sits. Tricky to explain? By St John the Baptist or a border? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
Your situation, summed up
Motor not started: ring, leaving it alone. Started by now? Pull over, switch off, phone. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest whichever it is, in Kingswear and Devon, on 0333 366 0103.