Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Morton
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and your ignition as well. AdBlue is urea dissolved 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. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully cleaned where your car stands in Morton. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Morton: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- If you're anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much quantity? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we will see.
- Give us a postcode starting PE10 0, or whichever street lies closest, and our van reaches you directly — so call from wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the car: your motor remains off.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Even a short distance down Station Road is too far to drive it.
- By the road, don't attempt draining it on your own.
The attendants on duty at any Morton forecourt — the Esso included — will normally lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. At home, your car stays just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it sits underneath your diesel, which is how a car filled in Cawthorpe yesterday and never started remains the straightforward one, as long as nobody touches your key.
Two kinds of damage follow 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 running on the components it reaches for as long as it remains there. A vehicle left sitting in Morton with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water content damages them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Shell. Mixed through the diesel and sitting still, it is no threat at that stage; using the motor is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Crystals and corrosion stay after the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back out of the diesel, and so watering it won't help. That is why the flush counts so much, and turning the key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Stainfield or the heart of Morton equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Lincolnshire your car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Morton: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors sits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container bought when driving home and poured in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical story.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is hurried outside The Morton Church of England (Controlled) Primary School, because your dash flashed with a warning as the kids were dropped in. After work, a container is tipped in on a drive close to St John's Close. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside Hare and Hounds, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
Rented vehicles, brand-new cars, company motors, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each: the least known cars get it the most. Wherever around Lincolnshire, Morton as well, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first response: keep it switched off.
Morton: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. It's been sucked through the fuel filter and the lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Rough running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may show up, maybe midway across Morton or returning from Hacconby Spinney. No starting it again to test: stop when safe, then switch everything off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Morton lies under 25 miles from the Great North Road; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than driving on.
A quick hop across Morton to the car park by Saint John the Baptist is one thing; driving for Peterborough, under 25 miles away, is another, because each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to clean out once your engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it's noticed soon.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Morton
A road beside New Day Baptist Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever your car has stopped around Morton, our technicians come to it. What got in, roughly how much, plus if the motor has turned over: our technicians ask before all else, because those shape the job.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. The fuel system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or replaced, if it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we arrive, if your engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to prime your system on fresh diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, outside Spalding or on a drive in Morton. It is tested on clean diesel to make sure it runs correctly before our engineers go. No workshop is needed at any point, with the entire job done then and there. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Morton, for a moment
Morton is a small village in south Lincolnshire, situated near the villages of Hanthorpe, Haconby, and Dyke. Morton lies in a low-lying area of the East Midlands, with an elevation of around 17 metres, and is approximately 16.8 miles from Peterborough. Morton has a population of around 1315 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Morton and Lincolnshire
Hanthorpe, Haconby and Dyke are among the places around Morton that the same teams serve, together with most of Lincolnshire further out, over the PE postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess if you are by a border, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
Wherever your car sits — a driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — we empty it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Morton, a rural village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Morton: the cost of fixing it
Not one flat figure would be honest, because every job is different. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of your car, because an open drive is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight spot behind Morton Village Hall.
That's why each call from Morton starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. Given those replies, the range shrinks to a single fixed figure.
Before anyone sets off, you are told our quote by phone. And payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Look at your policy while we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In Morton and still beside the vehicle?
Then, touch nothing — that is the most helpful move available. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran is all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder throughout Lincolnshire, Morton too.