AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Longlands? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your engine off and keep your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The trouble starts once it is pulled through your lines — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. In Longlands, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Longlands
Do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting DA15 7, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Parkhill Road.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
At a forecourt around Longlands, whether it's the Harvest Energy or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust to clean the fumes. No part inside a fuel pump is designed for this fluid — and none of that was meant to travel that way.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays apart instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Lamorbey overnight and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of that tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through if your engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny channels; and, since it attacks certain metals, every part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it remains in there. Overnight, a vehicle sitting in Longlands with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it is only inside the tank, nothing changes. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger fault?
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a problem of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is inside your tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain after the next tankful, and AdBlue splits back out of the diesel, so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush matters more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than nearly any other slip — in New Eltham or the centre of Longlands alike.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Wherever in Greater London the car has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Longlands?
It's not deliberate. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Longlands Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Longlands Road. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up your vehicle after dark, parked in the car park outside Sidcup Working Men's & Social Club.
Rented vehicles, new motors, company vehicles, or the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it most. Wherever you are in Longlands or the rest of Greater London, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Longlands?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. With any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any might show up, perhaps midway across Longlands or coming back from Longlands Recreation Ground. No restarting to test: pull over when safe, then switch everything off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
On the M20, under 10 miles from Longlands, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
A quick hop across Longlands to the car park by Sidcup Baptist Church is one matter; driving for London, under 10 miles away, is another, because every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So distance matters. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to clean out once your engine has been run, and our technicians do all of it where your car has stopped. Noticed early, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Longlands
A street beside Christ Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your car has stopped in Longlands, we come to it. The job rests on three answers, and our engineers ask for before all else — what was put in, the amount, and if the motor has run.
Next, draining that tank right there takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is flushed right through since what remains won't wash away unaided. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. Not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the final step. You head off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway around Longlands or in a space outside Sidcup. It is tested on fresh diesel to make sure it runs properly before our engineers head off. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, there is paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Longlands and where it is
Longlands is a suburban area in southeastern Greater London, situated near the River Thames at an elevation of around 45 metres. Longlands is located approximately 10.7 miles from central London and is close to nearby places such as Sidcup, Foxbury, and Albany Park. Longlands has a population of around 7299 people and is characterised by its predominant semi-detached housing stock. Longlands is a residential community with a mix of local amenities and transport links to London.
AdBlue drains across Longlands and Greater London
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Longlands also cover the spots round it, Sidcup, Foxbury and Albany Park among them, and most of Greater London beyond, across the DA postcode area. Assuming won't help close to a border or somewhere tricky to describe; ring and ask.
A van that comes to you suits Longlands, a residential suburb: you have no need to take your car to us, because our technicians drain it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Longlands: the cost of fixing it
No single price would be fair, because every job is different. What moves the cost is, firstly, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind St Lawrence of Canterbury RC Church.
With that reason, each call from Longlands opens with the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, if the engine ran — before a quote. With those replies, the range narrows to a single fixed figure.
The quote is quoted during the call, before anyone leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Longlands and still alongside your car?
Right now, the best thing to do with your car is to leave it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Longlands or anywhere in Greater London.