Lower Studley: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens until your motor pulls it through. In Lower Studley, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Lower Studley: the first few minutes
To do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take the keys out.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere close to moving traffic.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and roughly what quantity, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Quote a BA14 0 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Do not:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your car: the engine remains off.
- Your ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, and so it is pointless.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short way up Drynham Road.
- Beside the road, don't try draining it on your own.
On a forecourt around Lower Studley, whether it's the Tesco or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. At your own drive, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It drops, since it's denser than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its supply from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Upper Studley last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a car sitting in Lower Studley with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it's only inside that tank, nothing changes. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water offers none of that, and that is a separate form of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Applegreen, and this problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's inside your tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Studley Green or the middle of Lower Studley.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Anywhere across Wiltshire your vehicle has stopped, an unrun engine means the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Lower Studley
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars waits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's never the filling station: a driver buys a container driving home and pours it in outside the house.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Willowbrook Primary School the top-up is hurried. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive near Holbrook Lane. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Dursley Arms, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever in Wiltshire, Lower Studley as well, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first step: leave it switched off.
Lower Studley: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. The fuel filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and any running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Watch for rough running, smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from The Park, say, or part way across Lower Studley. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Lower Studley lies under 15 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of driving on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system, and so driving for Bath, under 10 miles away, gives a far bigger job than crossing Lower Studley to the car park by Trowbridge Mosque. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to clean out once the engine has run, and we do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Lasting damage is very rare when it's caught quickly.
Lower Studley: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A road beside New Testament Church of God, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the car has come to rest around Lower Studley, we travel to it. The job depends on three answers, which our technicians ask for before all else — what went in, the amount, and if your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after your tank is emptied, right there. What remains from AdBlue will not wash out unaided, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which counts far more here than with petrol. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, then a test of your car. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes last. Whether it's a parking space at Trowbridge or a driveway around Lower Studley, that is where our technicians fire it up and you head off. Before we go, we check it is running correctly with fresh diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Lower Studley, for a moment
Lower Studley is a suburban area in Wiltshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 44 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Lower Studley lies close to the city of Bath, approximately 8 miles away, and is also near to other places such as Longfield and Trowbridge. Lower Studley has a population of around 8399 people and is located in the South West region of England, about 90 miles from London. Lower Studley is characterized by its residential community and riverside setting.
AdBlue drains across Wiltshire, Lower Studley included
Over the BA postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs around Lower Studley serve most of Wiltshire as well, Longfield, Trowbridge and Drynham included. Phone and check rather than guess when you're close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
A van that comes to you suits Lower Studley, a residential suburb: there's no need to take the car to us, because we drain it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Lower Studley: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs vary, a single price would not be honest. The cost changes 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 depends on where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Trowbridge Library.
That's why each call from Lower Studley starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Once those are known, a range turns into one firm number.
You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Beside the car around Lower Studley, still?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the best thing you can do. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in Lower Studley or anywhere within Wiltshire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.