Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Littleham
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system pulls it in. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly flushed where the car sits in Littleham. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Littleham: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, so don't throw it out.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting EX8 2, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Shifting your car even a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch up Capel Lane.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Rolling the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Littleham forecourt you're on, the Tesco included. On that drive, the car remains just as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust to clean the fumes. No part inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and none of that was meant to go through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays apart instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue settles: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. When the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits beneath the diesel, which is how a car filled in Exmouth last night and not started remains the simple one, as long as no one turns the key.
After it is pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. It eats at certain metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it reaches until it is removed from your system. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow passages. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting till morning in Littleham leaves it worse. Inside the tank alone, waiting costs nothing. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. Blended through your diesel and left still, it's harmless for now; running your engine does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It does not burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the next tankful will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Littleham or out in Knowle, costs more than nearly any other slip.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and the tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Devon the car is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Littleham?
Many vehicles place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and in dim light the two may look identical. No one means it. A bottle bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical story.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Littleham Church of England Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up your car. Close to Littledown Close, a driver tips a bottle in on the drive after work. One more pattern: dim light, the car park by Clinton Arms, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a fleet motor, or the spare motor of a family with both fuels — the vehicles people use least. Wherever in Devon, Littleham as well, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first step: keep it off.
Littleham: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Liverton Copse, perhaps, or midway across Littleham. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Littleham sits under 10 miles from the M5; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and stop safely rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Littleham to the car park by Littleham Sports Hall is one matter; driving towards Exeter, under 10 miles away, is another, since each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. Let us know about how far it had come.
There is more to clean out once the engine has been run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage if it is noticed quickly.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Littleham
A road beside St Margaret and St Andrew's Church, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has come to rest in Littleham, we travel to it. The job rests on three replies, and we get first — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if your motor has turned over.
Next, draining the tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. A careful flush counts much more with AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains will not clear away by itself. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking bay outside Exmouth or a drive in Littleham, that is where our technicians fire it up and you set off. Before we leave, we check it's running properly with fresh diesel in. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Littleham, briefly
Littleham is a coastal suburban area in Devon, situated near the city of Exeter and close to the neighbouring communities of Withycombe Raleigh, Brixington, and Hulham. Littleham lies at an elevation of 46 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Littleham is located approximately 9.7 miles from Exeter and 153.7 miles from London, making it a relatively accessible location. Littleham has a population of around 2465 people, according to approximate estimates.
AdBlue drains across Littleham and Devon
AdBlue jobs in Littleham go to vans that cover the towns around it — Withycombe Raleigh, Brixington as well as Hulham — and much of Devon further out, throughout EX postcodes. Close to a border, or anywhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats assuming, and so ring.
A mobile service suits Littleham, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring the car to us, because our engineers empty it on the spot, in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Littleham
No single figure could be fair, because every job is different. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and after that where the car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Bidmead House Community Centre.
Before any quote, never after, each call from Littleham opens with the same three checks: the liquid, the amount, and whether the engine ran. Once those are answered, a range becomes a single firm figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear the quote on the phone. Then you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Littleham: still beside your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best step there is. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Littleham or anywhere in Devon, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran.