Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Mounters
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens until your motor sucks it round. In Mounters, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Mounters, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- Pocket your keys, which stops anyone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so don't throw it away.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a DT10 1 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your car: your motor stays off.
- Many diesels power their pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so keep it off.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't thin it.
- Even a short stretch along Fellowsmead is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the verge.
Rolling the vehicle away from the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Mounters forecourt you're on, the G&A Cook or any other. If you're on your own drive, leave it just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Pillwell yesterday evening and left unstarted is the straightforward case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though once your motor runs, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
Two kinds of damage come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and tiny channels; and, because it eats at certain metals, each part it touches suffers for as long as it stays in there. Lines holding AdBlue mean damage by morning for a vehicle sitting in Mounters. Just inside your tank, it stays the same. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Murco and you have a fault of thin fuel. No harm is done while it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only once the motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Because it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Whether your car is in Hains or the heart of Mounters, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other mistake, and the flush matters for more. Why: it won't remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only inside the tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere the car has come to rest around Dorset.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Mounters: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap — may appear the same. No one means it; many designs invite it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside St Gregory's Church of England Primary School, Marnhull the top-up is rushed. Someone pours the container in outside their house, right off Fillymead, as the day ends. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills your car after dark, parked in the car park outside Crown Inn.
The least familiar cars get it the most — rentals, new ones, company cars, and the other car in a family with one of each fuels. Wherever you are in Mounters or the rest of Dorset, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Mounters, and your engine started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and each injector, after passing via your filter and lines.
Maybe coming back from Marnhull Recreation Ground, or midway across Mounters, your engine might run rough, smoke, drop pace, flash your dash or cut out. No restarting to check: pull over once safe, then turn everything off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M5, under 50 miles from Mounters, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, so heading towards Wells, under 25 miles away, makes a much bigger job than crossing Mounters to the car park by St. Gregory's. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the motor has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Permanent damage is very rare if it is caught soon.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Mounters: what it takes
Anywhere it has stopped around Mounters — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a street beside Marnhull Village Hall — the van travels to the vehicle. Three answers shape the job, so before anything else our technicians ask which fluid was put in, about what quantity, and if the engine has run.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after that tank is emptied, on the spot. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
The last step is to prime the fuel system on new diesel. At that point we fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay by Templecombe or a drive around Mounters. It's checked on fresh diesel to make sure it runs properly before our engineers go. No workshop is needed at any point, with the entire job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Mounters
Mounters is a small locality in Dorset, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 90 metres. Mounters lies near the villages of Pleck, Marnhull, and Walton Elm, and is approximately 21.9 miles from the city of Wells. Mounters has a population of around 633 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Mounters and Dorset
Pleck, Marnhull and Walton Elm are among the towns around Mounters that the same vans serve, along with most of Dorset beyond, throughout the DT postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Anywhere the car sits — a drive at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — our engineers drain it there, with no need to take it to us; that suits Mounters, a small village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Mounters
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open driveway is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Cutt Mill.
Before any quote, never afterwards, every enquiry from Mounters begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus if the engine ran. Those answers shrink the range right down to one figure.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Mounters: still alongside your car?
Not touching your car is, then, the best move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Mounters or anywhere around Dorset.