Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Little Thorpe
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and your ignition too. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm happens until your motor sucks it through. Caught before your engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Little Thorpe. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Little Thorpe: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so do not throw it out.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting SR8 3, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the car: the motor remains off.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant the ignition goes on, so keep the vehicle off.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Keep it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Thorpe Road.
- By the road, don't attempt draining it on your own.
The staff on duty at any Little Thorpe filling station — the BP among them — will usually lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. At your own driveway, do not touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. Stored in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust to clean the gases. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Horden last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Once it is pulled in, the harm takes two forms. It attacks some metals found in fuel components, working on any part it touches until it is cleared from the system. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that block filters and settle in narrow channels. Overnight, a car parked around Little Thorpe with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it is just inside your tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water offers none of that, which is a separate form of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
A problem of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Asda. No damage comes as long as it sits unused, blended into your diesel — only when your engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the following fill won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Little Thorpe or out in Hawthorn, does more harm than almost any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue waits only inside the tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere your car has stopped across Durham.
Little Thorpe: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not on purpose. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it's never the filling station: someone buys a container driving home and pours it in outside the house.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Easington Colliery Primary School the top-up is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Essington Way. Else, in dim light outside The Half Moon, the vehicle is topped up by someone opening that flap for the first time.
Hired cars, brand-new motors, company motors, or the second car in a home with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Same slip, same first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you happen to be in Little Thorpe or the rest of Durham.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Little Thorpe?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. Via your filter, along the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or stalling: each may show up, perhaps midway across Little Thorpe or coming back from Wood House Park. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the A1(M), under 10 miles from Little Thorpe, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into your system. That's why a hop across Little Thorpe to park near Chapel of Rest and a drive of under 10 miles for Sunderland are such separate jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. If it is spotted quickly, long-term damage is very uncommon.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Little Thorpe
A street by Peterlee Christian Mission Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever your car has come to rest around Little Thorpe, our engineers come to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if your engine has run, because those replies settle this work.
Then the tank is drained where your car stands, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Residue from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, and so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters much more with urea than for petrol. Next, your filter: cleaned, or replaced if it must be. After that clean diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians get there, if your motor hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that's the final step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, at Horden or on a driveway in Little Thorpe. Before we leave, our engineers make sure it's running smoothly with new diesel in. No workshop is required at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Little Thorpe and where it is
Little Thorpe is a small hamlet in County Durham, situated near the coast and approximately 8.8 miles from Sunderland. Little Thorpe sits at an elevation of 96 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside and the North Sea. Little Thorpe is characterized by its semi-detached housing and quiet, residential atmosphere, with nearby towns including Easington and Peterlee.
Little Thorpe and Durham: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs around Little Thorpe are passed to vans that cover the towns around it — Easington, Easington Colliery plus Peterlee — and most of Durham beyond, across SR postcodes. Near a border, or anywhere tricky to explain? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
A mobile service fits Little Thorpe, a rural hamlet: there's no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers empty it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Little Thorpe: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Easington Village Methodist Church.
Before any quote, not afterwards, every enquiry from Little Thorpe opens with three checks: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. Once they are answered, a range turns into a single fixed figure.
Our price is given during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Little Thorpe: still alongside your car?
Not touching your car is, right now, the most useful thing you can do. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Little Thorpe or wherever in Durham.