Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Longford
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and your ignition as well. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens until your motor sucks it round. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly flushed where your car stands in Longford. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Longford
Do:
- Pull the keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the product and the quantity, so don't bin it out.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting GL2 9, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift the car.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Tewkesbury Road.
- Emptying your tank on your own by the road isn't one to try.
Rolling the car off the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Longford forecourt you are on, the Valero included. On that drive, the vehicle stays exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays separate instead of blending — entirely unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the very place the pickup draws from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Wotton last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
From there it does two kinds of harm. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, working on any part it touches until it is removed completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting till morning around Longford makes it worse. In the tank alone, waiting does nothing. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second form of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on another forecourt nearby's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the main issue. Harm only comes from driving on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting in your tank, it causes nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is plainly the wrong one. It cannot just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates again — and the next tankful won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Longford or out in Elmbridge, does more harm than nearly any other error.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Anywhere in Gloucestershire your vehicle has come to rest, an unrun engine means the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Longford
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors rests right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle picked up while heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
Usually, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside Longford Park Primary Academy, after the dash lit up with a warning as the children were taken off. Near Sherwood Green, a driver tips a container in on the drive in the evening. Otherwise, in dim light outside Queens Head, your car is topped up by a driver using that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Longford or the remainder of Gloucestershire, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Longford, and the motor started?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It has been sucked through the filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
Maybe coming back from Longford Park, or midway across Longford, the motor may run rough, smoke, drop pace, light up the dash or stall. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the M5, under 3 miles from Longford, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Longford to park near Longford Village Hall and a drive of under 3 miles for Gloucester are very different jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has run there is more of it. Spotted soon, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Longford
The vehicle remains put, whether that's a road beside Longlevens AFC, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in Longford, and the van comes to it. What went in, roughly how much, and if the engine has turned over: our technicians check before all else, since those decide the work.
Then your tank is emptied where the car waits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Finally, your system is primed with fresh diesel. You head off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway in Longford or in a space at Gloucester. The test before we head off is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers want.
About Longford and where it is
Longford is a village situated on the banks of the River Severn in Gloucestershire, with a low elevation of around 11 metres. Longford lies close to the city of Gloucester, being only 1.5 miles away, and is near other nearby places such as Walham and Kingsholm. Longford has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are the most predominant. Longford is located in the South West region of England, approximately 94 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Longford and Gloucestershire
AdBlue call-outs in Longford go to teams that serve the towns around it — Walham, Kingsholm as well as Longlevens — and most of Gloucestershire beyond, across GL postcodes. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No moving is needed. In Longford, a village, a van that comes to you works: the car is emptied where it stands, be it in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Longford: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job is different, so no fixed quote is honest. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open driveway is easier for our van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Gala Sports and Social Club.
What was put in, what quantity, plus if the engine ran: each Longford call begins with precisely those, ahead of any figure, never after. Their replies narrow the range right down to a single number.
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 many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Still next to the car in Longford?
Right now, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Longford or wherever within Gloucestershire.