Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mostyn
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your motor off then leave the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The trouble begins once it's sucked through the lines — it will not burn, and it will not combine with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your car stands around Mostyn. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Mostyn, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do:
- Remove the keys, and that stops anyone switching the electrics on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting CH8 9, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- Moving your car just a few yards is no reason to start the motor.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, so keep the car off.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it is wasted.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short way along Y Nant.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the verge.
The attendants working at any Mostyn forecourt — the Texaco among them — will usually lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. No part in an injection pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was meant to travel that way.
It does not combine. Once it is tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the same place the pickup draws from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Llannerch-y-mor overnight and hasn't turned since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, undrawn — though it would be first through if your engine runs, before any diesel at all.
Once it's sucked in, the damage takes two forms. 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 labouring on the components it gets to for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a car sitting in Mostyn with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it is just in your tank, nothing changes. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water part damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have an issue of thin fuel. Mixed into your diesel and sitting still, it is harmless for now; running your engine does the harm.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, so it cannot simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay after the following fill, and AdBlue splits back from your diesel, and so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush matters more, and turning your key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Tre-Mostyn or the heart of Mostyn alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Wherever across Flintshire your car has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
Mostyn: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — can look the same. Nobody means it; many layouts invite it. Usually it is never the forecourt: a driver picks up a container heading home and tips it in outside the house.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside the local primary school. A driver tips the container in at home, just off A548, as the day ends. One more pattern: darkness, the car park by the pub in the village, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're around Mostyn or the remainder of Flintshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Mostyn: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. The filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Maybe coming back from Mostyn Park Woods, or part way across Mostyn, the engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or stall. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Keep it off instead of restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the Moreton Spur, under 10 miles from Mostyn, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, so driving for St Asaph, under 10 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Mostyn to the car park by Port of Mostyn. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where the car has stopped, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. If it's spotted early, long-term damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Mostyn?
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Mostyn: a side street close to St Margaret's Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. What got in, roughly the quantity, plus whether your engine has been run: our engineers check first, since those shape the work.
Then your tank is drained where the vehicle waits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since what remains will not wash away unaided. A test of the vehicle comes at the end, once fresh diesel is added and the filter is flushed or, if needed, swapped. If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the final step. Whether it is a parking space at West Kirby or a drive in Mostyn, that is where our engineers fire it up and you set off. The test before we go is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a garage. At the end, there is the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Mostyn
Mostyn is a small coastal village in Flintshire, situated near the Irish Sea at an elevation of around 35 metres. Mostyn has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are the most common, and it is located near other small communities such as Rhewl-Mostyn and Glan-y-don. Mostyn is close to the city of St Asaph, which is about 8.5 miles away, and is part of a wider area of rural and coastal settlements in north Wales.
AdBlue drains in Mostyn and across Flintshire
AdBlue call-outs in Mostyn go to teams that serve the towns near it — Rhewl-Mostyn, Maes Pennant plus Glan-y-don — and much of Flintshire further out, across CH postcodes. Guessing won't help close to a county line or anywhere tricky to pin down; phone and ask.
Mostyn is a coastal village, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Mostyn: the cost of fixing it
Each job is different, and so not one fixed price is honest. What changes the price is, first, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind TSS Duke of Lancaster.
For that in mind, each enquiry from Mostyn opens by asking the identical trio — what was put in, what quantity, if it ran — before any quote. Once those are answered, a range turns into a single firm number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told our price by phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. While the van is travelling, check your policy: many include misfuelling.
Mostyn: still alongside the car?
Then, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in Mostyn or wherever in Flintshire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran.