Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Long Melford
Engine off, ignition off: that is how you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm happens until the engine sucks it round. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Long Melford. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Long Melford
Do:
- Pocket your keys, and that stops someone switching the power on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so do not bin it away.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a CO10 9 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to move your car.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts the pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch up Liston Lane.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
Get the attendants to help you move the car away from the island if you are on a forecourt around Long Melford, whether it's the Tesco or somewhere else. On your own drive, do not move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It drops, because it's heavier than diesel, and settles low where the pickup draws its fuel from. A motor filled on a driveway in Cuckoo Tye overnight and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but once your engine turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
Once it's pulled in, the harm takes two forms. What remains when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and clog filters. On top of that, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is flushed out. Lines holding AdBlue spell harm overnight for a car sitting around Long Melford. Just inside that tank, it stays the same. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
An issue of thinned fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol at the BP. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Whether your vehicle sits in Acton Place or the centre of Long Melford, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next fill.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Suffolk your car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Long Melford
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. It usually occurs outside the house, from a bottle bought on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Long Melford Church of England Primary School. Close to Hall Street, a driver pours a bottle in on that drive after work. Else, after dark outside Cock and Bell, the vehicle is topped up by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It occurs most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Long Melford or the remainder of Suffolk, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Long Melford?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through the filter and lines.
Expect rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Icehouse Plantation, say, or midway across Long Melford. When safe, stop then switch it off — without turning it on again to test. Every start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M11, under 25 miles from Long Melford, at the next junction and stop safely, not driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Long Melford to the car park by St Catherine is a very different job from a run towards Colchester, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Spotted early, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Long Melford: what it takes
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Long Melford: a side street near Long Melford Library, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers decide the work, and so first our technicians ask which fluid was put in, roughly the amount, plus whether the motor has run.
Then the tank is emptied where your car waits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is cleaned right through because what remains won't wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after your filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming the system with new diesel comes last. After that our technicians start the engine and you set off, whether from a parking bay outside Sudbury Suffolk or a driveway in Long Melford. Our technicians confirm it runs correctly on clean diesel before we go. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to go to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Long Melford itself
Long Melford is a village situated in the Stour Valley in Suffolk, with the River Stour running along its edge. Long Melford lies at an elevation of 34 metres, close to the Essex border, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Liston and Rodbridge Corner. Long Melford has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the village is within commuting distance of Colchester and London. Long Melford is home to approximately 1683 residents, according to recent estimates.
Long Melford and Suffolk: AdBlue drains across the area
Liston, Rodbridge Corner and Liston Gardens are among the towns around Long Melford that the same teams serve, along with most of Suffolk further out, over the CO postcode area. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Anywhere the car stands — your driveway at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits Long Melford, a village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Long Melford: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. What changes the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Lady Jane Department Store.
That is why every call from Long Melford starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Those answers narrow a range down to one figure.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Beside the car in Long Melford, right now?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the most useful move open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether it ran are all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Suffolk, Long Melford included.