Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Longfield
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the engine off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The harm begins once it is sucked through the lines — it won't burn, and it won't combine with diesel. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully purged where the car stands around Longfield. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Longfield: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a DA3 7 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- Moving your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the moment the ignition comes on, and so keep the car off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short distance down Station Road.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
At a forecourt around Longfield, whether it's the Shell or another one, ask the staff to help you push your car clear of the pump. At home, your car remains exactly where it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. No part inside an injection pump is made for this fluid — and none of it was intended to travel that way.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays apart instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the very spot the pickup draws from. A vehicle filled on a drive in Hook Green yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the straightforward case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though once your engine turns, that is what goes first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filters and narrow channels; and, because it attacks certain metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays in there. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Longfield leaves it worse. In that tank only, time costs nothing. And there's the water: it brings no protection to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Sainsbury's, and this issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is in your tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, so it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates back out — and the following fill will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Longfield or out in Grubb Street, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
As with petrol, there's good news. Emptying a tank is the simplest part on a fuel system, and without start-up, the AdBlue stays in there — anywhere around Kent your car sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Longfield: how it ends up there
Plenty of vehicles put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and after dark the two can look identical. Nobody intends it. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a bottle bought en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. Hurrying, outside Langafel Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone refills your car. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive near Northdown Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside Railway Tavern, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up the most in a rental, a new car, a fleet motor, or the spare motor in a family with one of each fuels — the vehicles people use the least. Anywhere across Kent, Longfield included, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first step: keep it off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Longfield?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. The filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Watch for rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Longfield Community Park, perhaps, or midway across Longfield. No restarting to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M20, under 3 miles from Longfield, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That is why crossing Longfield to park near Longfield Library and a drive of under 25 miles towards London are very different jobs. Let us know about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been run. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it's caught early.
Longfield: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A road by St Mary Magdalene, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your car has stopped around Longfield, our technicians come to it. Three answers decide the work, and so first our technicians ask which fluid got in, roughly the amount, and if your engine has turned over.
Next, emptying that tank right there takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. A full flush matters far more after AdBlue than after petrol, since residue won't clear out by itself. Testing your car follows at the end, once clean diesel goes in and the filter is cleaned or, if necessary, swapped. About half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when the engine hasn't run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the system with fresh diesel comes at the end. You set off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway in Longfield or in a space at the nearest station. Before we go, we confirm it's running smoothly with clean diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never has to go to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Longfield itself
Longfield is a village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 49 metres, and is located approximately 19.9 miles from London. Longfield has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and the village is near other communities such as Whitehill and Hartley. Longfield is part of the wider South East region, with nearby Westwood also being a neighbouring area. Longfield remains a relatively small village with a population of around 1619 residents.
AdBlue drains across Longfield and Kent
AdBlue call-outs around Longfield are passed to teams that cover the towns near it — Whitehill, Westwood as well as Hartley — and most of Kent further out, across DA postcodes. Assuming doesn't help by a border or anywhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
No towing is needed. In Longfield, a rural village, a mobile service works: the car is emptied where it stands, be it on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Longfield
Because each callouts differ, a single figure wouldn't be fair. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that was put in. After that it rests on where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Long Valley Community Hall.
With that in mind, every call from Longfield begins by asking the identical trio — what was put in, how much, whether it ran — ahead of any quote. When they are known, a range turns into a single fixed figure.
You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Still next to your car around Longfield?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Longfield or wherever in Kent.