AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mossy Lea? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave the engine off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it is pulled through the pump — it will not burn, and it will not combine with diesel. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Mossy Lea. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mossy Lea: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so do not throw it away.
- Call just where you are. Say a WN6 9 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to start your engine.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way along Broadhurst Lane.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
At a forecourt around Mossy Lea, whether it is the BP or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. At your own drive, don't touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
It does not combine. After it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools underneath it — the very spot the pickup sucks from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle topped up in Robin Hood yesterday and not switched on remains the straightforward one, provided no one turns the key.
Two kinds of harm 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, and so it keeps running on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. A vehicle left sitting around Mossy Lea with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Shell, and this issue is diluted fuel. Mixed through the diesel and sitting still, it is no threat at that stage; running your engine does the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot simply be run through, because it does not burn. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the next tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Mossy Lea or out in Coppull Moor, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside the tank, the easiest section of the entire system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has stopped around Lancashire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Mossy Lea: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap — can look the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of designs invite it. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Wrightington Mossy Lea Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Mossy Lea Road. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills your car after dark, stopped in the car park by the pub in the village.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the other car in a home with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers know the least. Wherever around Lancashire, Mossy Lea as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it switched off.
Mossy Lea: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. It's been drawn through your filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each may appear, perhaps midway across Mossy Lea or returning from Wet Oaks Wood. Once safe, stop and turn it off — without turning it on again to see. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M6, under a mile from Mossy Lea, at the next junction and stop safely, not carrying on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Mossy Lea to the car park by Tunley United Reformed Church is a very different job from a run towards Preston, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the motor has been started. Noticed soon, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Mossy Lea?
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Mossy Lea: a side street near St James The Great, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. What got in, roughly the quantity, and whether your engine has been run: our engineers check before all else, because those decide the job.
Next, emptying the tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. What remains from AdBlue will not wash away unaided, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than for petrol. A test of the car follows at the end, after clean diesel goes in and your filter gets flushed or, where necessary, replaced. About half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs when your motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes last. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive in Mossy Lea or in a bay at Appley Bridge. The test before we go is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. No garage is needed at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Mossy Lea, for a moment
Mossy Lea is a small village in Lancashire, situated inland at an elevation of 96 metres, approximately 10 miles from Preston. Mossy Lea has a population of around 561 people, with predominantly detached housing. Mossy Lea is located near other local places such as Wrightington Bar, Wrightington, and Hunger Hill, and is about 181 miles northwest of London.
Mossy Lea and Lancashire: AdBlue drains across the area
Wrightington Bar, Wrightington and Hunger Hill are among the towns around Mossy Lea that the same teams reach, along with most of Lancashire beyond, over the WN postcode area. Guessing won't help by a county line or anywhere hard to describe; phone and check.
No towing is needed. In Mossy Lea, a rural village, a van that comes to you works: the car is drained where it stands, be it in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Mossy Lea: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind The Catholic Church of Saint Joseph.
Which fluid was put in, how much, and whether it ran: every Mossy Lea call opens with precisely those, before a figure, not after. Those replies narrow a range right down to a single number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the quote by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Check your insurance while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Mossy Lea and still next to your car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Mossy Lea or anywhere in Lancashire.