Knowley: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition too. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage only starts once the pump begins pulling it. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Knowley. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Knowley
Do these:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take your keys away.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, and so do not throw it out.
- Call right where you are. Say a PR6 9 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Moving your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to start the engine.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Keep it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Paradise Street.
- Draining that tank yourself beside the road is not one to try.
On a forecourt in Knowley, whether it's the Shell or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car clear of the pump. On your own drive, don't move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Heapey last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What remains when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it's flushed out. Pipes holding AdBlue mean damage by morning for a vehicle parked around Knowley. Only inside that tank, it stays stable. And there is the water: it brings no protection to the parts that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on BP's forecourt makes the fuel thin — that is the main fault. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is inside the tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits again — and the next fill won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Knowley or out in White Coppice, costs more than almost any other error.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Wherever across Lancashire your car has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to empty.
Knowley: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. It usually occurs outside the house, from a bottle bought en route home, rather than at the filling station.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside St Peter's CofE Primary School Chorley the refill is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Blackbrook Close. Or someone new to that flap tops up your vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park by The Lock and Quay.
Hired vehicles, new motors, fleet vehicles, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it the most. Anywhere in Lancashire, Knowley included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Knowley?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It's been drawn through the fuel filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Maybe coming back from Temple Wood, or midway across Knowley, the motor might go rough, smoke, drop power, flash your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M61, under a mile from Knowley, at the first junction and park safely, rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Knowley to the car park by Chorley Sea Cadets is a very different job from a run towards Preston, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the car has ended up, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. Long-term damage is very rare if it's noticed quickly.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Knowley: what it takes
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a street near St Joseph, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Knowley, and the van travels to it. Three replies shape the job, and so first we ask which fluid went in, roughly the amount, plus if the motor has turned over.
Right there, your tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains will not wash out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we arrive, if the engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Last, your system is primed with new diesel. You drive off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway in Knowley or in a bay outside Chorley. Our engineers check it runs smoothly on new diesel before leaving. Because the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Knowley
Knowley is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with a mix of detached housing and open spaces. Knowley sits at an elevation of 115 metres, approximately 7.5 miles from Preston and 181.9 miles from London. Knowley forms part of a larger residential area that includes nearby Little Knowley and Great Knowley.
AdBlue drains across Knowley and Lancashire
Throughout the PR postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue jobs in Knowley reach much of Lancashire as well, Little Knowley, Great Knowley and Hartwood among them. Ring and ask instead of guessing when you are by a county line, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
Wherever the vehicle sits — your drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits Knowley, a residential suburb, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Knowley: the cost of fixing it
Every job is different, and so no fixed quote is fair. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind St Peter's Church.
Ahead of a quote, never after, each enquiry from Knowley begins with the same three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and whether it ran. With them, a range shrinks to a single firm figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told our quote by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Next to the vehicle around Knowley, right now?
Then, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Knowley or wherever in Lancashire.