Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mount Pleasant
Motor off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm starts until the motor sucks it through. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully rinsed where the car stands around Mount Pleasant. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Mount Pleasant: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Take the keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the amount, and so do not throw it out.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting SA6 5, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, so it's pointless.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Heol-y-nant.
- Draining the tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Rolling the car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Mount Pleasant forecourt you're on, the the nearest petrol station or any other. At your own drive, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the engine emits. Nothing in a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was intended to go that way.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It drops, because it's denser than diesel, and pools low where the pickup takes its fuel from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, which is how a car filled in Caer-graig yesterday and not started remains the straightforward case, as long as no one turns the key.
Once it's pulled in, the damage takes two forms. It eats at some metals found in fuel components, working on whatever it touches till it is cleared from your system. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow passages. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, leaving it till morning around Mount Pleasant makes it worse. In that tank only, waiting costs nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is frequently worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Asda and you have an issue of thin fuel. Mixed into the diesel and left still, it's no threat at that stage; using your motor does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Graigfelen or the heart of Mount Pleasant, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Anywhere around Swansea the car has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Mount Pleasant?
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — can appear the same. Nobody means it; many layouts allow it. A bottle bought when heading home and poured in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical route.
Mostly, it happens 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 the local primary school. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Sybil Street. Else, in dim light outside Hebron Inn, your car is topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
Rented vehicles, brand-new motors, fleet cars, or the second vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least known vehicles see it the most. Wherever you are in Mount Pleasant or the rest of Swansea, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mount Pleasant?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running carries it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or stalling: each may appear, maybe midway across Mount Pleasant or coming back from Graig-felen Plantation. When you safely can, pull over then turn everything off — with no restarting to test. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
If you were on the M4, under 3 miles from Mount Pleasant, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Mount Pleasant to park beside Clydach Library and a drive of under 10 miles towards Swansea are such different jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once your engine has been running. Spotted soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Mount Pleasant: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped around Mount Pleasant — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road beside Bethel Evangelical Church — the van travels to your vehicle. The job rests on three replies, and our engineers ask for before all else — what went in, the amount, and if your motor has run.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is flushed right through because residue won't wash out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in after the fuel filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians arrive, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with fresh diesel comes last. You set off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive around Mount Pleasant or in a bay by Llansamlet. The check before our engineers go is that it runs correctly on new diesel. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never has to go to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Mount Pleasant itself
Mount Pleasant is a suburban area located on the riverside in Swansea, with an elevation of 28 metres above sea level. Mount Pleasant sits near the communities of Clydach, Aber-Clydach, and Faerdre, and is approximately 5.6 miles from Swansea city centre. Mount Pleasant is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, and is home to around 3774 residents. Mount Pleasant is situated in a commuter-friendly location, with easy access to nearby urban areas.
AdBlue drains around Mount Pleasant and across Swansea
The teams that answer AdBlue call-outs in Mount Pleasant also cover the locations round it, Clydach, Aber-Clydach and Faerdre among them, and most of Swansea beyond, across the SA postcode area. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of guessing.
A mobile service fits Mount Pleasant, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring your car to us, because our technicians empty it there, on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
Mount Pleasant: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, since an open drive is easier for our van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Dynamic Rock.
Ahead of a quote, not after, every call from Mount Pleasant opens with three questions: the liquid, the amount, and whether the engine ran. Their replies narrow the range right down to one figure.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Alongside the car around Mount Pleasant, still?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in Mount Pleasant or wherever within Swansea, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.