Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Minchinhampton
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. As it is water-based, it will not ignite and never combines with diesel; trouble only starts when your pump starts pulling it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully cleaned where the vehicle sits around Minchinhampton. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Minchinhampton
Do:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, pull the keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so don't throw it out.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting GL6 9, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Things not to do:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short stretch down Bell Lane is too far to drive it.
- Do not try to drain it yourself by the roadside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll your car off the pumps if you're on a forecourt in Minchinhampton, whether it is the Shell or elsewhere. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, where it cleans the gas. Nothing inside a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was meant to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps apart instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the same spot the intake draws from. When your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits beneath your diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Hampton Green last night and never switched on remains the straightforward one, as long as nobody touches the key.
From there it does two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. A car left standing in Minchinhampton with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. And there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that rely on it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Murco's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that's the main issue. No harm is done while it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only when the engine runs on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be diluted. 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 your motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Box or the middle of Minchinhampton.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and that tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Gloucestershire the vehicle is standing.
Minchinhampton: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of vehicles place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap, and after dark the two can appear identical. No one intends it. Mostly it's not the filling station: someone picks up a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. Hurrying, outside Minchinhampton Primary Academy, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. Someone tips the container in outside their house, right off Butt Street, as the day ends. Or the car is topped up in the car park at Ragged Cot, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Minchinhampton or the remainder of Gloucestershire, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Minchinhampton, and the engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been drawn through the filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Perhaps returning from Stewart Playing Field, or part way across Minchinhampton, your motor may go rough, smoke, lose power, flash the dash or stall. No starting it again to check: pull over when safe, then turn it off. Every start pulls more of it through.
On the M5, under 10 miles from Minchinhampton, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system. That is why crossing Minchinhampton to park beside Holy Trinity and a drive of under 15 miles towards Gloucester are very separate jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the engine has been run there is more of it. If it's noticed quickly, permanent damage is very rare.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Minchinhampton
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Minchinhampton: a side street close to Minchinhampton Community Library, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job depends on three replies, which our engineers ask for first — what got in, the amount, and whether the motor has turned over.
Next, draining that tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. What remains from AdBlue will not flush out unaided, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts much more with urea than with petrol. Next, your filter: flushed, or replaced if it must be. After that clean diesel, and then a test of your vehicle. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we get there, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that is the last step. After that we start the car and you set off, whether from a parking space by Stroud or a drive in Minchinhampton. We check it runs properly on fresh diesel before we go. Since the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Minchinhampton itself
Minchinhampton is a town in Gloucestershire, situated inland at an elevation of 184 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Minchinhampton lies near the cities of Gloucester and the smaller nearby places of Bubblewell, Forwood, and Knave-in-hole. Minchinhampton is approximately 89 miles west of London, making it a relatively rural town in the South West region. Minchinhampton has a population of around 4522 residents.
AdBlue drains across Gloucestershire, Minchinhampton included
Bubblewell, Forwood and Knave-in-hole are among the towns around Minchinhampton that the same vans reach, along with most of Gloucestershire beyond, over the GL postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess when you're close to a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Minchinhampton is a town, and an on-site 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 is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Minchinhampton: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Because each jobs vary, a single figure would not be honest. Three things change the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one rests on whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Minchinhampton Youth and Community Centre.
For that reason, every enquiry from Minchinhampton begins by asking the same trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, whether it ran — ahead of a figure. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As our engineer is on the way, dig out your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Minchinhampton: still next to your car?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Tell us it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Minchinhampton or anywhere in Gloucestershire.