Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Maybush
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing starts till the motor sucks it round. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Maybush. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Maybush: the first few minutes
Do these:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, pull your keys away.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting SO16 5, or whichever street lies closest, and our van finds you straight — so ring from wherever you stand.
Never:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the vehicle: the motor stays off.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it's wasted.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch down Coxford Road.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself at the kerbside.
The attendants working at any Maybush filling station — the Tesco among them — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. At home, the vehicle stays just where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, and there it treats the gas. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools underneath it — the very spot the intake sucks from. When your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is how a vehicle topped up in Old Shirley yesterday and not switched on remains the straightforward one, as long as nobody touches your key.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. It eats at certain metals found in fuel components, working on whatever it touches till it's removed from your system. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and lodge in narrow channels. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight around Maybush makes it worse. In the tank only, time does nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Sainsbury's. No harm is done while it stays unused, blended into your diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, so it cannot simply be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Aldermoor or the centre of Maybush, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other error, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not remain mixed, and so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere in Hampshire the car sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Maybush
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles waits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container picked up while driving home and poured in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. The refill gets hurried outside Shirley Warren Primary & Nursery School, after your dash flashed with a warning while the kids were taken in. Close to Rownhams Road, someone tips a bottle in at home after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Ice House, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar vehicles get it the most — rentals, brand-new ones, company ones, and the spare car of a family with one of each fuel types. Wherever you are around Maybush or the rest of Hampshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Maybush?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. The fuel filter and pipework have had it sucked along, and any running takes it on to the injection pump and each injector.
You may notice your engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from The Mound or halfway across Maybush. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the Nursling Spur Motorway, under 3 miles from Maybush, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile carries the AdBlue deeper into the system, and so heading towards Southampton, under 3 miles away, gives a much bigger job than hopping across Maybush to the car park by St Peters Church. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once your engine has been started. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it's noticed early.
Maybush: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A road beside Kingdom Hall, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere the car has come to rest around Maybush, we come to it. The work rests on three answers, and we ask for first — which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if your motor has run.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through since residue won't wash out unaided. Testing the vehicle follows at the end, once clean diesel is added and your filter gets cleaned or, if necessary, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, provided the motor hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
New diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that's the last step. Whether it's a parking bay by Redbridge or a driveway in Maybush, that is where our technicians fire it up and you head off. The test before our technicians go is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Maybush, for a moment
Maybush is a suburban area located on the coast in southern Hampshire, sitting approximately 27 metres above sea level. Maybush is situated near the city of Southampton, with Coxford, Wimpson, and Shirley Warren as nearby places. Maybush has a population of around 10343 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. Maybush is also within commuting distance to London, being around 69.6 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Maybush and Hampshire
The teams that answer AdBlue call-outs in Maybush also cover the spots around it, Coxford, Wimpson and Shirley Warren among them, and most of Hampshire beyond, across the SO postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Anywhere the car stands — a driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers empty it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Maybush, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Maybush
There is no honest single price, since the jobs aren't the same. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Holy Family Catholic Church.
For that reason, each enquiry from Maybush begins with the same trio — what got in, what quantity, if it ran — before a figure. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still next to your car in Maybush?
Then, do nothing — that's the most helpful step available. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in Maybush or anywhere within Hampshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.