Montpellier: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, leave your engine off then keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble just starts when the pump starts pulling it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and thoroughly purged where the vehicle stands around Montpellier. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Montpellier
Do:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, take your keys away.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about how much, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Say a GL50 1 postcode or the closest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Never:
- Shifting your car just a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Back Montpellier Terrace.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
Rolling your car away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Montpellier forecourt you are on, the Texaco included. On your own drive, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps separate rather than blending — quite different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. A vehicle topped up on a driveway in Cheltenham yesterday evening and left unstarted is the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but when your engine turns, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filters and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it attacks some metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays inside. If the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Montpellier leaves it worse. Inside the tank alone, waiting does nothing. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Shell, and the problem is diluted fuel. No harm is done as long as it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only once your motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back out of your diesel, and so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other slip — in The Park or the centre of Montpellier alike.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever in Gloucestershire your car has stopped, an unrun engine means the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the simplest part of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Montpellier: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles waits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought when heading home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the typical story.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. The refill is hurried outside The Catholic School of Saint Gregory the Great, after the dash flashed with a warning as the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Suffolk Place. Or someone new to that flap refills your vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park by The Rotunda.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet car, or the spare motor in a home with both fuel types — the cars people use the least. Leave it switched off: that is the first step to the same mistake, anywhere in Montpellier or the remainder of Gloucestershire you happen to be.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Montpellier, and your engine started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. With any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, having passed via the fuel filter and pipework.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Montpellier Gardens, perhaps, or midway across Montpellier. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave the car off rather than testing it again. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the M5, under 3 miles from Montpellier, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Distance counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system, and so heading towards Gloucester, under 10 miles away, gives a far larger job than hopping across Montpellier to the car park by Gardens Gallery. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once your engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage if it's caught early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Montpellier
Anywhere it has come to rest around Montpellier — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a street by The Paragon Gallery — our van travels to the vehicle. The job rests on three replies, which we get first — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if the motor has turned over.
Then that tank is drained where your car sits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Testing your car follows last, once fresh diesel goes in and the filter gets cleaned or, where needed, swapped. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your engine has not run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to bleed the system on new diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, at Cheltenham Spa or on a drive in Montpellier. Our technicians check it runs correctly on fresh diesel before we leave. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Montpellier and where it is
Montpellier is a suburban area in Gloucestershire, situated on the banks of the River Severn at an elevation of around 72 metres. Montpellier is located near several other residential areas, including Bays Hill, Tivoli, and Overton Park, and is approximately 7.3 miles from the city of Gloucester. Montpellier has a population of around 7857 people, predominantly residing in flats. Montpellier is also within commuting distance to London, being around 87.9 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Montpellier and Gloucestershire
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls around Montpellier also cover the places round it, Bays Hill, Tivoli and Overton Park among them, and most of Gloucestershire beyond, across the GL postcode area. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
No towing is needed. In Montpellier, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: your car is emptied where it stands, whether on a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Montpellier: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be fair, because each job differs. Three things move the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind J.N. Maskelyne.
That's why every call from Montpellier starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. Given those replies, a range shrinks to a single firm number.
The price is quoted on the call, before anyone sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Montpellier and still beside the car?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful step there is. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Montpellier or anywhere across Gloucestershire.