AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lightfoot Green? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the engine. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. The trouble begins once it's pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it will not combine with diesel. In Lightfoot Green, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Lightfoot Green: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting PR4 0, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Many diesels run their pump the moment your ignition goes on, and so leave the car off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not weaken it.
- Leave the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up Mansfield Court.
- Emptying the tank yourself by the road isn't one to try.
Moving your car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Lightfoot Green forecourt you are on, the BP included. At your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your motor lets out. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the same spot the intake sucks from. A car topped up on a drive in Cottam overnight and left unstarted is the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the motor turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it's flushed out. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage by morning for a vehicle parked around Lightfoot Green. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the Hillcrest Service Station, and the problem is thinned fuel. Mixed through the diesel and left still, it is harmless for now; running your engine does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot just be run through, since it does not burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits back out — and the following fill will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Lightfoot Green or out in Ingol, does more harm than almost any other slip.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Emptying a tank is the simplest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue remains in there — anywhere across Lancashire the vehicle has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Lightfoot Green: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles waits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly takes place at home, from a bottle grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Harris Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Cheltenham Crescent. Another version: dim light, a pub car park outside The Guild Merchant, and someone using that flap the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Lightfoot Green or the remainder of Lancashire, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Lightfoot Green?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It has been pulled through the filter and your lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Maybe coming back from Conway Park, or part way across Lightfoot Green, your engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or cut out. When safe, stop then switch it off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
Lightfoot Green lies under a mile from the M55; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of driving on.
A quick hop across Lightfoot Green to the car park by Preston Grasshoppers R.F.C. is one thing; driving for Preston, under 3 miles away, is another, because every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been running. Long-term damage is very rare when it is spotted early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Lightfoot Green?
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Lightfoot Green: a side street near Fulwood Free Methodist Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Which fluid went in, about how much, plus if your motor has turned over: we check first, since those shape the job.
Then the tank is emptied where the car waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed right through because what remains will not wash away unaided. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes last. Then we fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space by Preston or a driveway in Lightfoot Green. It's tested on fresh diesel to make sure it runs properly before our engineers leave. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never needs to go to a garage. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About Lightfoot Green, for a moment
Lightfoot Green is a locality situated on the riverside in Lancashire, with an elevation of 42 metres above sea level. Lightfoot Green lies approximately 2.9 miles from Preston and is surrounded by other nearby places such as Nog Tow, Tanterton, and Higher Bartle. Lightfoot Green has a population of around 1154 residents and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
AdBlue drains across Lancashire, Lightfoot Green included
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around Lightfoot Green also cover the spots round it, Nog Tow, Tanterton and Higher Bartle among them, and most of Lancashire beyond, across the PR postcode area. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or anywhere tricky to pin down; ring and ask.
No towing is needed. In Lightfoot Green, a neighbourhood, a van that comes to you fits: the car is drained on the spot, whether on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Lightfoot Green: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs are not the same. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind St Martin.
That is why each call from Lightfoot Green starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. Once those are known, a range becomes one fixed number.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before a van leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Lightfoot Green and still alongside your car?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, right now, the best move open to you. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it ran are all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Lancashire, Lightfoot Green too.