AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mevagissey? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep the motor off and leave your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the fuel system draws it in. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Mevagissey. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Mevagissey: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Ring just where you are. Say a PL26 6 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Don't do these:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition your vehicle.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Keep the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Portmellon Park.
- Emptying that tank yourself by the road isn't worth trying.
Rolling the car off the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Mevagissey forecourt you're on, the Texaco included. If you are on your own drive, leave it precisely where it sits.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup sucks fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Gorran Churchtown last night and hasn't been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of your tank, untouched — though it would be the first thing through once the motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. It eats at certain metals found in fuel components, attacking whatever it touches till it is cleared completely. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. Overnight, a car sitting around Mevagissey with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it's only in your tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water offers none of that, and that is a second form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. Damage just comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside the tank, it causes none.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable liquid. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Tregiskey or the middle of Mevagissey.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Emptying a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue stays in there — anywhere around Cornwall the car has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Mevagissey: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, now and then under a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. Hurrying, outside Mevagissey Community Primary School, after a warning light 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 Portmellon Road. One more version: darkness, a pub car park outside The Rising Sun Inn, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
The least known cars see it most — rentals, new ones, company ones, and the other car of a home with one of each fuel types. Wherever around Cornwall, Mevagissey as well, the slip does not change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Mevagissey?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. With any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, after passing through your filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Cliff Park, perhaps, or midway across Mevagissey. No starting it again to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch it off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M5, over 50 miles from Mevagissey, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, so heading for Truro, under 15 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Mevagissey to the car park by Mevagissey Marine Aquarium. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after your engine has been run. Spotted early, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Mevagissey?
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Mevagissey: a side street close to World of Model Railways, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has been run, because those replies decide this work.
Right there, your tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is cleaned right through because what remains will not wash out by itself. Testing the car comes at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, if necessary, swapped. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Priming the fuel system with new diesel comes last. Whether it's a parking bay at St Austell or a drive in Mevagissey, that is where our engineers start it and you set off. It's checked on fresh diesel to be sure it runs correctly before we go. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Mevagissey
Mevagissey is a small coastal village in Cornwall, situated on the south coast at an elevation of around 4 metres. Mevagissey has a population of approximately 248 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Mevagissey is located near other small settlements such as Portmellon and Trevarth Estate, and is within a short distance of the city of Truro. Mevagissey remains a quiet and secluded community, some 220 miles from London.
Mevagissey and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in Mevagissey are passed to teams that serve the towns around it — Portmellon, Trevarth Estate plus Trewollock — and most of Cornwall further out, throughout PL postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
Anywhere your car stands — your drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers empty it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; that suits Mevagissey, a coastal village, well.
Mevagissey: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There's no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of your car, because an open driveway is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Mevagissey Museum.
For that reason, each enquiry from Mevagissey opens with the same trio — what was put in, how much, whether the engine ran — before any figure. When they are answered, a range becomes a single fixed figure.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. While the van is travelling, check your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Still alongside your car around Mevagissey?
Not touching your car is, right now, the most useful move you can do. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Mevagissey or anywhere within Cornwall.