Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mount Hawke
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your motor off and leave the ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. As it is water-based, it will not ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts when your pump starts drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Mount Hawke, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before your motor has run. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Mount Hawke: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents anyone switching the power on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting TR4 8, or the name of the nearest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- No starting the motor — not briefly, not to reposition the car.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition goes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Fore Street.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it on your own.
Moving your vehicle away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Mount Hawke forecourt you're on, the Esso or any other. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, and there it treats the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Skinners Bottom last night and has not been started since. The liquid sits at the foot of that tank, untouched — though it would be first through if your engine runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny passages and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it's flushed out. Overnight, a car sitting around Mount Hawke with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; where it is only in that tank, it doesn't. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector need diesel running past them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger issue?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Texaco and you have a problem of thin fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside the tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, so it cannot just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Towan Cross or the middle of Mount Hawke.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere in Cornwall your car has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Mount Hawke?
Many cars put the AdBlue cap beside the diesel cap, now and then behind one flap, and after dark the two can look the same. No one means 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.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside Mount Hawke Academy, after your dash lit up with a warning while the kids were dropped off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Banns Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Victory Inn, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
Rented cars, brand-new vehicles, fleet motors, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles get it the most. Leave it switched off: that is the first response to the same slip, wherever around Mount Hawke or the remainder of Cornwall you are.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mount Hawke?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. It's been pulled through your filter and your lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — returning from Mount Hawke (Millennium Green), perhaps, or midway across Mount Hawke. Once safe, stop and switch it off — with no restarting to see. Every start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M5, over 50 miles from Mount Hawke, at the first junction and park safely, rather than carrying on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That's why crossing Mount Hawke to park near Mount Hawke Methodist Church and a drive of under 10 miles for Truro are very different jobs. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once your engine has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it's spotted early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Mount Hawke
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Mount Hawke: a side street near W.I. Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies shape the work, and so first our engineers ask what got in, roughly the amount, and whether your motor has run.
Next, emptying the tank right there removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned right through because what remains won't flush away unaided. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, then a test of the car. Engine not run? Then count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. After that we start it and you drive off, whether from a parking bay by Redruth or a driveway around Mount Hawke. Before we leave, our engineers make sure it is running correctly with clean diesel in. As the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Mount Hawke and where it is
Mount Hawke is a small village in Cornwall, situated on the coastal fringe of the South West region, with Banns Vale and Mingoose nearby. Mount Hawke sits at an elevation of around 90 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside and close to the larger town of Truro. Mount Hawke has a mix of housing types, but terraced homes are particularly prevalent in the village. Mount Hawke is located approximately 7 miles from Truro and 237 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, Mount Hawke included
Over the TR postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs around Mount Hawke reach much of Cornwall as well, Banns Vale, Mingoose and Menagissey included. Near a boundary, or somewhere awkward to explain? Checking is better than assuming, and so phone.
No moving is needed. In Mount Hawke, a coastal village, a mobile service works: your vehicle is drained on the spot, whether on a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
Mount Hawke: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. What shifts the price is, first, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind War Memorial.
Before a quote, not afterwards, every enquiry from Mount Hawke begins with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus if it ran. Given those replies, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
The price is given on the call, before anyone leaves; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Check your insurance whilst we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Beside the vehicle in Mount Hawke, still?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best thing you can do. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus if it ran is all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Cornwall, Mount Hawke too.