AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Lynemouth? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the motor. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when the system draws it in. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Lynemouth. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps straight away, Lynemouth: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Put the hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so don't bin it out.
- Give us a postcode starting NE61 5, or whichever street lies nearest, and our van finds you directly — so ring wherever you stand.
Don't do these:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's pointless.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short way down Albion Terrace.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
Get the attendants to help you move your vehicle off the pumps if you're at a forecourt in Lynemouth, whether it's the Asda or somewhere else. At your own drive, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump cannot take urea.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the same place the pickup sucks from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Woodhorn Demesne last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; and, since it eats at some metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it remains in there. By daybreak, a car parked around Lynemouth with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; where it's only in your tank, nothing changes. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part damages them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the BP, and the issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's inside the tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Deposits and corrosion remain after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of your diesel, and so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush counts more, and turning the key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other slip — in Linton or the heart of Lynemouth equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just inside the tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to empty, wherever your car has stopped around Northumberland.
Lynemouth: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly occurs at home, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside NCEA William Leech CofE Primary School the top-up is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Bridge Road. Else, after dark by Lynemouth Miners Welfare Institute, the car gets refilled by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — hire cars, brand-new cars, fleet cars, and the spare vehicle in a home with one of each fuels. Wherever you're in Lynemouth or the rest of Northumberland, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Lynemouth?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. It's been drawn 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.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each may show up, perhaps part way across Lynemouth or coming back from Lyne Dene. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the A167(M), under 25 miles from Lynemouth, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Lynemouth to the car park by Lynemouth Resource Centre is a very different job from a run towards Newcastle upon Tyne, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it is caught quickly.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Lynemouth
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Lynemouth: a side street close to St Aidan Lynemouth, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job rests on three replies, and our technicians get before all else — what was put in, the quantity, and whether the motor has turned over.
Right there, the tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. The system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where your engine has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no fault, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes last. You head off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Lynemouth or in a space outside Ashington. The test before our technicians head off is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. No workshop is required at any point, with the whole job done on the spot. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Lynemouth itself
Lynemouth is a small coastal village in Northumberland, situated near the towns of Woodhorn and Ellington, with Cresswell to the north. Lynemouth lies on the eastern coast of England, approximately 16 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne, and its elevation is around 20 metres above sea level. Lynemouth has a mix of housing types, but terraced houses are predominant in the village. Lynemouth is relatively distant from London, at about 262 miles away.
Lynemouth and Northumberland: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the NE postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs in Lynemouth serve most of Northumberland as well, Woodhorn, Ellington and Cresswell included. Assuming won't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
Lynemouth is a coastal village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Lynemouth
Each job differs, and so not one single price would be fair. What shifts the price is, first, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Lynemouth Welfare Pavillion.
That's why each call from Lynemouth starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. Given those replies, a range narrows to a single fixed number.
Before a van sets off, you hear our price by phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Lynemouth: still alongside your car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Lynemouth or anywhere around Northumberland.