AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Naseby? Keep It Switched Off
Motor off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The harm starts once it's pulled through your pump — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully flushed where your car stands around Naseby. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Naseby: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- Pull your keys out, so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- The van finds you quickest with a postcode starting NN6 6, or simply the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Do not do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: your motor stays off.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, so it is wasted.
- Even a short distance along Bakehouse Rise is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No draining it yourself, either, at the roadside.
Get the people behind the counter to help you roll the vehicle off the pumps if you're on a forecourt around Naseby, whether it's the Inver or elsewhere. If you're on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. From a dedicated tank it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays separate instead of mixing — entirely unlike fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very place the pickup draws from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is how a car filled in Clipston yesterday and not switched on stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns your key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. What remains once the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going till it is cleared out. A vehicle left sitting in Naseby with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel running past them, so the water content harms them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. No harm comes while it stays unused, mixed into your diesel — only when the engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Sibbertoft or the middle of Naseby.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits just inside that tank, the simplest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has come to rest around Northamptonshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Naseby: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap — may look the same. No one means it; many layouts allow it. Mostly it is not the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle driving home and tips it in outside the house.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Naseby Church of England Primary Academy the top-up is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off School Lane. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside The Royal Oak, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same slip, same first response — keep it switched off — anywhere you are in Naseby or the rest of Northamptonshire.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Naseby?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. The filter and pipework have had it sucked along, and some running time takes it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Paisnell Spinney, say, or part way across Naseby. When you safely can, stop then turn everything off — without restarting to see. Every start pulls more of it through.
On the M1, under 10 miles from Naseby, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
A quick hop across Naseby to the car park by Naseby Methodist Church is one matter; heading towards Leicester, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So distance matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to flush once the motor has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. Caught quickly, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
Naseby: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Naseby: a side street close to All Saints, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and if your motor has been run, because those answers settle this work.
Next, emptying the tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. A full flush matters far more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains will not wash out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where your motor hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. You set off as soon as our technicians have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Naseby or in a space at Market Harborough. Before we go, our engineers confirm it is running smoothly with new diesel in. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Naseby itself
Naseby is a village in Northamptonshire, situated near the River Nene and surrounded by rolling countryside. Naseby sits at an elevation of 191 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Naseby is located near several other villages, including Haselbech, Thornby, and Cold Ashby, and is approximately 17.6 miles from Leicester. Naseby has a population of around 778 residents.
Naseby and Northamptonshire: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in Naseby go to teams that cover the towns around it — Haselbech, Thornby as well as Cold Ashby — and much of Northamptonshire beyond, throughout NN postcodes. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Naseby is a village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Naseby: the cost of fixing it
Every job differs, and so no single quote is fair. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Source of River Avon.
What got in, what quantity, and if the engine ran: each Naseby call begins with exactly that, ahead of any quote, never afterwards. Those replies narrow the range down to one number.
You hear that quote by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Naseby and still next to the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Naseby or anywhere around Northamptonshire.