AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mongleath? Don't Start It
Engine off, ignition off: that is how you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. The trouble begins once it is pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. In Mongleath, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Mongleath, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Near moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a TR11 4 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Shifting the car just a short way is no reason to start the engine.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start the pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Even a short stretch along Bickland Industrial Park is too far to drive it.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
The attendants working at any Mongleath forecourt — the the nearest petrol station included — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it stands.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Stored in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. A fuel pump isn't made to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. When the system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits underneath the diesel, which is why a car filled in Penryn yesterday and not switched on stays the simple case, provided no one touches your 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 is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. Lines carrying AdBlue spell harm overnight for a vehicle parked in Mongleath. Only in your tank, it stays the same. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have an issue of thin fuel. No harm comes while it stays put, mixed into the diesel — only when your motor works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. It can't just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates again — and the next tankful won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Mongleath or out in Falmouth, costs more than nearly any other error.
As with petrol, there is good news. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever around Cornwall your car has stopped.
Mongleath: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the forecourt: a driver picks up a container driving home and tips it in outside the house.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside St Francis CofE Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills the car. A driver pours the bottle in outside their house, right off Bickland Water Road, as the day ends. Else, after dark by Verdant Brewing Co, your car is refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the spare motor in a home with both fuels — the cars drivers know the least. Wherever you're in Mongleath or the rest of Cornwall, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mongleath?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It has been pulled through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
You may see your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Tregoniggie Woodland or halfway across Mongleath. When safe, stop and switch everything off — with no turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of that through.
Mongleath lies over 50 miles from the M5; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and stop somewhere safe rather than driving on.
Distance counts: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so heading for Truro, under 10 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Mongleath to the car park by Bickland Park. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage when it's noticed soon.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Mongleath: what it takes
Wherever it has come to rest around Mongleath — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a street beside Budock Parish Church — the van travels to the car. What was put in, about how much, and if the motor has turned over: we ask before all else, since those shape the job.
Next, emptying the tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians arrive, if the engine hasn't run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes at the end. Whether it is a parking bay outside Penmere or a drive around Mongleath, that is where we start the engine and you head off. We check it runs correctly on new diesel before leaving. As the job is done in full where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Mongleath and where it is
Mongleath is a suburban area in Cornwall, situated near the coast and approximately 7.9 miles from Truro. Mongleath sits at an elevation of around 63 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Mongleath is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near other nearby places such as Budock Water and Boslowick.
Mongleath and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs around Mongleath are passed to vans that serve the towns around it — Budock Water, Boslowick plus Swanvale — and much of Cornwall further out, across TR postcodes. Guessing won't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
Mongleath is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Mongleath
Not one flat figure would be honest, because every job is different. Three things move the cost: whether the motor 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 get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight space behind Budock Village Hall.
That's why each call from Mongleath starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Those replies shrink the range right down to a single number.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Mongleath and still next to the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Mongleath or anywhere in Cornwall.