Leftwich: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the engine. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the fuel system draws it in. If the motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully cleaned where the car stands around Leftwich. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Leftwich: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the quantity, and so do not throw it out.
- Call right where you are. Quote a CW9 8 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to shift the vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant your ignition goes on, so leave it off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not weaken it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch down Stonecroft.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the verge.
At a forecourt in Leftwich, whether it's the Shell or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the car away from the petrol pump. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump isn't made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays apart instead of blending — entirely unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the very place the pickup draws from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Northwich overnight and has not been started since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of your tank, undrawn — but it will be first through once your engine runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow 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, so it keeps labouring on the components it gets to for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight in Leftwich makes it worse. Inside your tank only, time does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part damages them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more significant than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Tesco. Mixed through the diesel and sitting unused, it's harmless for now; running the engine is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, and so it can't simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Leftwich or out in Greenbank, does more harm than almost any other slip.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Cheshire the car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Leftwich: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy after dark. It usually occurs outside the house, from a container grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Leftwich Community Primary School. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway close to Dobells Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Woodpecker, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that's the first response to the same slip, anywhere in Leftwich or the rest of Cheshire you are.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Leftwich?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Via the filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or stalling: any may appear, maybe midway across Leftwich or coming back from Granville Road Recreation Ground. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Leftwich sits under 5 miles from the M6; if you were on it, leave by the first junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Leftwich to the car park by War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Chester, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once your engine has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it's noticed early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Leftwich?
Anywhere it has stopped in Leftwich — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street by Northwich Rowing Club — our van comes to your car. Three answers shape the job, and so first we ask which fluid was put in, about what quantity, plus if your motor has run.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. The system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Testing your vehicle follows at the end, once clean diesel goes in and the filter gets flushed or, where needed, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians turn up, provided the motor has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Starting it comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, at Greenbank or on a driveway around Leftwich. The test before we go is that it runs properly on new diesel. Our technicians do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never has to go to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About Leftwich, for a moment
Leftwich is a village in Cheshire, situated on the banks of the River Dane at an elevation of around 33 metres. Leftwich lies approximately 16 miles south of Chester and is part of a network of rural communities that include nearby Kingsmead, Davenham, and Rudheath. Leftwich has a population of around 3918 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Leftwich is located in the North West region of England, about 156 miles north-west of London.
Leftwich and Cheshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the CW postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs around Leftwich serve much of Cheshire as well, Kingsmead, Davenham and Rudheath included. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
A mobile service fits Leftwich, a village: you have no need to bring your car to us, because our engineers empty it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
Leftwich: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No flat price would be honest, since every job is different. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the car, because an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight space behind St Wilfrid's Church.
Ahead of a figure, never after, each enquiry from Leftwich begins with three questions: the fuel, the amount, plus if the engine ran. Those replies narrow the range right down to a single figure.
Our price is quoted on the call, before a van leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Next to the car in Leftwich, right now?
Then, touch nothing — that's the best step available. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Leftwich or anywhere around Cheshire.