Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Longhope
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens till your engine pulls it round. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Longhope. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Longhope: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents someone switching the electrics on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and roughly how much, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Quote a GL17 0 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your car: the engine stays off.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself starts the pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it is pointless.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way up Station Lane.
- By the road, don't try draining it yourself.
The attendants working at any Longhope filling station — the Gulf included — will usually lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. On your own drive, do not move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. From a separate tank it goes straight to your exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the very spot the intake sucks from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Ganders Green overnight and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of that tank, undrawn — but it will be the first thing through once the engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
After it is sucked in, the harm takes two forms. It eats at some metals used in fuel systems, working on whatever it touches till it is removed from the system. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow channels. Lines carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a vehicle sitting in Longhope. Just inside that tank, it stays the same. Then there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the Total Energies, and this issue is thinned fuel. Mixed into your diesel and sitting still, it is no threat at that stage; running the motor is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates back out — and the following tankful won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Longhope or out in May Hill Village, does more harm than almost any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever across Gloucestershire the vehicle has stopped, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Longhope?
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then behind one flap — may appear the same. Nobody means it; many layouts allow it. It mostly occurs at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Hope Brook CofE Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone tops up your car. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Church Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside Yew Tree, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same slip, same first step — leave it switched off — wherever you are around Longhope or the rest of Gloucestershire.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Longhope, and the engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It has been pulled through the fuel filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Perhaps returning from Longhope Recreation Ground, or midway across Longhope, your motor might go lumpy, smoke, drop pace, flash your dash or stall. Stop when it is safe. Switch off. Leave it off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Longhope lies under 5 miles from the M50; if you were on it, leave by the first junction and stop safely rather than carrying on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That's why a hop across Longhope to park beside Longhope Village Hall and a drive of under 10 miles for Gloucester are very different jobs. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the car has stopped, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Spotted soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Longhope: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped in Longhope — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street by Hobbs Quarry Lime Kiln — our van travels to your car. The work rests on three answers, and our engineers get before all else — which fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether the engine has turned over.
Right there, that tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. A full flush counts far more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains will not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. About half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs when your motor hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that is the last step. Starting the car comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, by Gloucester or on a driveway in Longhope. It is checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs properly before our technicians go. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Longhope
Longhope is a village situated in a riverside setting in Gloucestershire, with a population of around 1144 people. Longhope has a mix of housing, but predominantly features detached homes, and is located near to other small settlements such as Brimps Hill and Little London. Longhope sits at an elevation of 60 metres, close to the city of Gloucester, which is approximately 8.8 miles away. Longhope is also within a reasonable distance of London, being around 102.7 miles to the southwest of the capital.
Longhope and Gloucestershire: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs in Longhope go to vans that serve the places near it — Brimps Hill, Dursley Cross plus Little London — and much of Gloucestershire beyond, across GL postcodes. Ring and check instead of guessing when you are by a border, or somewhere tricky to explain.
Anywhere your vehicle stands — a driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a filling station — our technicians drain it there, with no need to bring it to us; which suits Longhope, a village, well.
Longhope: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No flat price could be fair, since each job is different. Three things move the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight gap behind All Saints Church.
Ahead of any figure, never after, every enquiry from Longhope begins with three checks: the fuel, the quantity, plus whether it ran. When those are answered, a range turns into one firm number.
You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Longhope and still alongside the vehicle?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the best step there is. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Longhope or anywhere around Gloucestershire.