AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Little Oakley? Don't Start It
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you begin if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm starts till the motor sucks it through. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Little Oakley. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Little Oakley, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
Things to do:
- Pocket the keys, which prevents anyone switching the power on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting CO12 5, or whichever street lies nearest, and the van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you are.
Don't:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way along Harwich Road.
- By the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
On a forecourt around Little Oakley, whether it's the Texaco or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the car clear of the pump. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, and there it treats the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It does not combine. Once it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits beneath your diesel, which is how a car filled in Parkeston last night and never switched on stays the straightforward one, as long as nobody turns your key.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and narrow passages; meanwhile, because it attacks certain metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays in there. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting around Little Oakley with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it is only inside your tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a separate form of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the Morrisons, and the problem is thinned fuel. No harm comes as long as it stays put, mixed into your diesel — only when your engine runs on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. It can't simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Crystals and corrosion stay after the next tankful, and AdBlue splits back out of your diesel, so watering it won't help. Hence the flush matters so much, and turning your key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other mistake — in Wrabness or the centre of Little Oakley alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever across Essex the car has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue still in the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
Little Oakley: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally under one flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; many layouts invite it. It usually takes place at home, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside St Michael's CofE Primary Academy, Ramsey the refill is hurried. Someone pours the container in at home, just off Rectory Road, as the day ends. Another pattern: darkness, a pub car park outside Ye Olde Cherry Tree, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet vehicle, or the spare car of a family with one of each fuels — the cars drivers know the least. Wherever you are in Little Oakley or the rest of Essex, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Little Oakley?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been sucked through your filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — returning from Oakley Coronation Park, perhaps, or part way across Little Oakley. Once you safely can, stop then turn it off — with no turning it on again to test. Every start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M11, under 50 miles from Little Oakley, at the next junction and park safely, not carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Little Oakley to the car park by Heavy Anti-aircraft gunsite is a very different job from a run towards Colchester, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has ended up, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. When it is spotted soon, lasting damage is very unusual.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Little Oakley?
Wherever it has stopped in Little Oakley — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street beside Little Oakley Village Sign — the van travels to your car. Which fluid got in, about how much, plus whether your motor has turned over: we ask before all else, since those decide the job.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after your tank is emptied, right there. Your system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of the car follows last, once fresh diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets cleaned or, if needed, swapped. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, provided your engine has not run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the last step. Whether it is a parking bay at Harwich International or a drive around Little Oakley, that is where we start the engine and you drive off. It's tested on new diesel to make sure it runs properly before we leave. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Little Oakley itself
Little Oakley is a small village on the coast of Essex, situated near the towns of Ramsey and Great Oakley. Little Oakley has a population of around 883 people and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Little Oakley sits at an elevation of 24 metres, looking out over the coastal landscape. Little Oakley is located near Upper Dovercourt and is within commuting distance of Colchester, which is 13.9 miles away.
Little Oakley and Essex: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue calls in Little Oakley also cover the locations round it, Ramsey, Great Oakley and Upper Dovercourt among them, and most of Essex beyond, across the CO postcode area. Close to a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
A mobile service suits Little Oakley, a coastal village: there's no need to take your vehicle to us, because our technicians empty it on the spot, in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Little Oakley?
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Kingdom Hall of Jehovahs Witnesses.
Which fluid was put in, how much, and if it ran: each Little Oakley call opens with precisely that, ahead of any figure, never after. Their answers narrow a range down to a single figure.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before anyone leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is travelling, dig out your policy: many include misfuelling.
Next to the car around Little Oakley, still?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Little Oakley or anywhere around Essex.