Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Merstham
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. The trouble starts once it is pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't blend with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Merstham, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your engine has been run. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Merstham: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pull your keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about what quantity, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting RH1 3, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Switching the key to ignition alone starts your pump running on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up London Road North.
- Beside the road, don't attempt draining it yourself.
Rolling your vehicle away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Merstham forecourt you are on, the Esso included. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Neither side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very place the intake draws from. A vehicle filled on a drive in Holmethorpe yesterday evening and not started since is the straightforward case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but once your engine runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
Once it's drawn in, the damage comes in two forms. It attacks certain metals used in fuel systems, working on any part it reaches till it is cleared completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny passages. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting overnight in Merstham leaves things worse. Inside the tank only, waiting does nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second kind of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a problem of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's in the tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Whether the car sits in Coles Meads or the centre of Merstham, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not stay blended, so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the following fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Surrey the vehicle is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Merstham
Many cars put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap, and in dim light the two may look the same. No one intends it. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Merstham Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone refills the car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Gatton Bottom. Else, in dim light by The Feathers, your car gets refilled by someone opening that flap for the first time.
The least familiar vehicles see it most — rentals, new cars, fleet ones, and the spare motor of a home with both fuels. Wherever you're around Merstham or the rest of Surrey, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Merstham, and your engine started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through the filter and pipework.
Expect rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — returning from Church Hill Covert, perhaps, or part way across Merstham. No starting it again to check: pull over when safe, then turn it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Merstham sits under a mile from the M25; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so driving towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, gives a much bigger job than crossing Merstham to the car park by St Katharine's. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once your engine has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it's noticed early.
Merstham: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A street beside Merstham Village Hall & Club, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest in Merstham, our technicians come to it. What went in, roughly how much, and if your engine has turned over: our technicians check before all else, since those decide the work.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. Residue from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters far more here than for petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes last. Then we start it and you head off, whether from a parking space outside the nearest station or a driveway in Merstham. Before we leave, our technicians make sure it's running smoothly with new diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About Merstham and where it is
Merstham is a small village in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 111 metres, approximately 16.5 miles south of London. Merstham has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is close to nearby places such as South Merstham and Gatton. Merstham remains a quiet residential community with a small population of around 680 people.
Merstham and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
South Merstham, Gatton and Subrosa are among the towns around Merstham that the same teams serve, together with much of Surrey further out, throughout the RH postcode area. Guessing won't help by a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
A mobile service suits Merstham, a rural village: you have no need to take your vehicle to us, since we drain it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Merstham?
Not one flat figure could be honest, because every job is different. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind The Gallery.
For that in mind, each enquiry from Merstham begins by asking the same trio — which fluid was put in, how much, if the engine ran — before any figure. With those replies, a range narrows to one fixed figure.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. As the van is travelling, check your policy: many cover misfuelling.
Beside the vehicle in Merstham, right now?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Merstham or anywhere in Surrey, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.