Marazion: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. The trouble begins once it's sucked through your lines — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly cleaned where the car sits in Marazion. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Marazion: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Call right where you are. Quote a TR17 0 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Shifting your vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start your pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Even a short stretch down Market Place is too far to drive the car.
- Don't try to drain it yourself at the kerbside.
The attendants on duty at any Marazion filling station — the Morrisons included — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. On the drive, your car stays exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed straight to the exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this fluid — and none of it was intended to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue settles: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. When your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Tregurtha Downs last night and never started remains the straightforward one, as long as no one turns the key.
Two kinds of harm come from there. It eats at certain metals found in fuel components, attacking any part it reaches till it is cleared completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting till morning around Marazion leaves things worse. In that tank only, waiting does nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Petrol put into a diesel on Sainsbury's's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that is the main problem. No damage is done as long as it stays put, blended into your diesel — only once your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot just be run through. Whether the car sits in Longrock or the centre of Marazion, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts more. Why: it will not stay blended, and so watering it down fails; and crystals and corrosion survive the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just in the tank, the simplest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere your car has come to rest across Cornwall.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Marazion
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then under one flap — can look the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts allow it. Usually it is never the filling station: someone picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. Hurrying, outside Marazion School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off The Square. One more version: darkness, a pub car park by Cutty Sark, and someone using that flap for the first time.
The least known vehicles get it most — rentals, brand-new ones, fleet ones, and the other car in a family with both fuels. Anywhere in Cornwall, Marazion included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first step: leave it switched off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Marazion?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Through your filter, along the lines, and — given any running — on to the injection pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
You may see the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from The Garden Terraces or halfway across Marazion. When safe, stop and switch everything off — with no turning it on again to test. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M5, over 50 miles from Marazion, by the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Mileage counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system, so heading for Truro, under 25 miles away, makes a much bigger job than hopping across Marazion to the car park by Marizion Museum. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once your engine has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. When it's spotted early, long-term damage is very rare.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Marazion
A road beside All Saints' Church, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the vehicle has stopped in Marazion, we travel to it. Three answers shape the job, and so before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly the amount, plus if the engine has run.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. A full flush counts far more with AdBlue than with petrol, since residue won't clear out by itself. A test of your car follows at the end, after fresh diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, where necessary, swapped. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians get there, provided the motor has not run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where your car is parked, outside Penzance or on a drive around Marazion. The test before our technicians head off is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. Afterwards, there is paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Marazion and where it is
Marazion is a small town on the coast of Cornwall, situated near the iconic St Michael's Mount and looking out over Mount's Bay. Marazion has a population of around 1520 people and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Marazion sits at a low elevation of 12 metres above sea level, close to the nearby settlements of Gwallon, Newtown, and Plain-an-Gwarry.
AdBlue drains across Marazion and Cornwall
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls around Marazion also cover the locations around it, Gwallon, Newtown and Plain-an-Gwarry among them, and most of Cornwall beyond, across the TR postcode area. Phone and check instead of guessing when you're by a county line, or anywhere awkward to explain.
Marazion is a coastal town, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers 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 around Marazion?
No single price would be fair, because every job differs. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, since an open driveway is easier for a technician to get to safely than a tight space behind Marazion Methodist Church.
For that in mind, every enquiry from Marazion opens with the identical trio — what went in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before a figure. Once those are known, a range turns into a single firm number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As our engineer is travelling, check your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Marazion: still beside your car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Marazion or wherever within Cornwall, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.