Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Monkton Combe
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep the motor off — and your ignition as well. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it won't burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble only comes once the pump begins pulling it. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle stands in Monkton Combe. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Monkton Combe
Do these:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- If you are anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call just where you are. Quote a BA2 7 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Do not start your motor, even for a moment to move your car.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Keep it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Shaft Road.
- Emptying your tank yourself beside the road is not one to try.
The attendants working at any Monkton Combe forecourt — the Essar included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust to clean the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than blending — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the very place the pickup sucks from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits underneath the diesel, which is how a car filled in Combe Down last night and not started stays the simple one, provided no one touches your key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. 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, so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting around Monkton Combe with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it's just inside the tank, nothing changes. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate form of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the Esso, and the issue is thinned fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside that tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot simply be run through, since it does not burn. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the next fill will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters more here, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Monkton Combe or out in Conkwell, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Somerset your car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Monkton Combe: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars rests right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly takes place at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, rather than at the filling station.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Combe Down CofE Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. Someone pours the bottle in outside their house, just off Church Lane, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light by Wheelwrights Arms, the vehicle is refilled by someone opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up the most in a rental, a brand-new vehicle, a company car, or the spare motor of a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers know least. Wherever you're around Monkton Combe or the rest of Somerset, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Monkton Combe?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. The filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Longmead Playing Fields or halfway across Monkton Combe. When safe, pull over and turn it off — with no restarting to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
Monkton Combe sits under 10 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and pull up safely rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Monkton Combe to the car park by Monkton Combe Village Hall is a very different job from a run towards Bath, under 3 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after your engine has been running. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Monkton Combe: what it takes
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Monkton Combe: a side street close to Saint Michael's Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Which fluid was put in, roughly how much, and if the engine has turned over: our technicians check first, since those shape the job.
Next, draining that tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. The system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. Starting it comes next, and then you head off from where the car is parked, by Freshford or on a drive in Monkton Combe. Our engineers make sure it runs properly on new diesel before we go. As the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Monkton Combe itself
Monkton Combe is a small village situated on the riverside in Somerset, with a low elevation of around 55 metres. Monkton Combe lies close to the city of Bath, approximately 2.3 miles away, and is near other local places such as Claverton Down and Limpley Stoke. Monkton Combe has a population of around 600 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
AdBlue drains in Monkton Combe and across Somerset
AdBlue call-outs around Monkton Combe are passed to teams that serve the places around it — Claverton Down, Tucking Mill as well as Limpley Stoke — and much of Somerset further out, throughout BA postcodes. Phone and ask rather than guess when you are by a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
Monkton Combe is a village, and a mobile 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 stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Monkton Combe: the cost of fixing it
Every job differs, and so no single quote would be fair. What shifts the cost is, firstly, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind William Smith stone plaque.
For that reason, every call from Monkton Combe opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid went in, how much, if it ran — ahead of any figure. Given those replies, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
Our quote is given on the call, before a van leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Monkton Combe: still beside your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the best move there is. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Monkton Combe or anywhere in Somerset, once you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.