Lower Trewellard: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your motor off then leave the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. In Lower Trewellard, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Lower Trewellard: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents anyone switching the power on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and about what quantity, save the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting TR19 7, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to shift your car.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't thin it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short distance up Levant Road.
- Draining your tank on your own beside the road is not worth trying.
On a forecourt around Lower Trewellard, whether it is the Trewellard Garage or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car away from the pump. At home, your car stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, where it treats the gas. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel 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 Higher Boscaswell last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning around Lower Trewellard leaves it worse. Inside the tank alone, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger issue?
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol at the another forecourt nearby. No harm comes while it stays unused, blended into your diesel — only once your motor runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is plainly the wrong one. Because it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates again — and the following tankful won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Lower Trewellard or out in Pendeen, costs more than nearly any other slip.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere across Cornwall the car has stopped, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Lower Trewellard: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then under one flap — may appear the same. No one means it; many layouts allow it. It usually happens outside the house, from a bottle bought en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Pendeen School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Trewellard Road. Or someone new to that flap tops up the car in dim light, parked in the car park by Trewellard Arms.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new vehicle, a company motor, or the other vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people use the least. Same slip, an identical first response — leave it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Lower Trewellard or the remainder of Cornwall.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Lower Trewellard?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been pulled through the filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Maybe coming back from Trewellard Common, or midway across Lower Trewellard, the engine may go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or stall. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M5, over 50 miles from Lower Trewellard, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Lower Trewellard to the car park by Higher Bal Engine and Boiler House is a very different job from a run towards Truro, under 50 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after your engine has been run. If it's caught early, permanent damage is very rare.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Lower Trewellard
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Lower Trewellard: a side street near Geevor Tin Mine, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job depends on three replies, which we ask for first — what was put in, the amount, and if the motor has run.
Next, draining the tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. What remains from AdBlue will not wash out unaided, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on new diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where the car is parked, at Penzance or on a drive around Lower Trewellard. Before we go, our engineers confirm it's running smoothly with new diesel in. Since the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Lower Trewellard itself
Lower Trewellard is a small suburban area situated on the coast of Cornwall, with its terraced housing characteristic of the region's traditional architecture. Lower Trewellard sits at an elevation of 124 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape and out to sea. Lower Trewellard is located near the villages of Trewellard and Carnyorth, and is within commuting distance of Truro, the nearest city. Lower Trewellard has a population of around 515 people, making it a small but distinct community.
Lower Trewellard and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the TR postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs around Lower Trewellard serve most of Cornwall as well, Trewellard, Carnyorth and Lower Boscaswell included. Near a border, or somewhere awkward to explain? Asking beats assuming, so phone.
Lower Trewellard is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Lower Trewellard?
There's no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. Three things move the price: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one rests on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight spot behind Hard Rock Museum.
Before any figure, not after, each enquiry from Lower Trewellard begins with three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus if the engine ran. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Before a van sets off, you hear the price by phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While our engineer is on the way, check your policy: many include misfuelling.
Next to your car in Lower Trewellard, still?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Lower Trewellard or wherever in Cornwall.