Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Nelson
Motor off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The harm starts once it's sucked through the pump — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Nelson. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Nelson, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
Things to do:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents anyone turning the power on.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting BB9 7, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Do not:
- No starting the engine — not for a second, not to reposition the vehicle.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it is pointless.
- Keep the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Every Street.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the verge.
Ask the attendants to help you move your vehicle off the pumps if you're on a forecourt in Nelson, whether it is the Morrisons or elsewhere. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Carr Hall overnight and has not turned since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of that tank, undrawn — but it will be the first thing through if your engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
After it's pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the components it gets to for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a car parked around Nelson with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it is only in the tank, it doesn't. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector need diesel flowing past them, so the water part damages them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the BP. Blended into the diesel and left still, it's harmless at that stage; running your engine does the harm.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. It cannot just be run through, because it does not burn. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the next fill won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of Nelson or out in Little Marsden, does more harm than nearly any other slip.
As with petrol, there's good news. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Lancashire your car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Nelson: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the filling station: a driver picks up a bottle driving home and pours it in at home.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. The top-up gets hurried outside Whitefield Infant School and Nursery, because your dash lit up with a warning as the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Albion Street. Or someone new to that flap refills your vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park outside Lord Nelson.
It happens most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Nelson or the remainder of Lancashire, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Nelson?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The fuel filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Victoria Park (north), perhaps, or midway across Nelson. No starting it again to test: stop when it is safe, then turn everything off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the M65, under a mile from Nelson, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Nelson to the car park by Nelson Library is a very different job from a run towards Bradford, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. If it is caught quickly, long-term damage is very rare.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Nelson: what it takes
The car remains where it is, whether that's a street beside Christ Church, a drive, a layby or a filling station in Nelson, and the van travels to it. Three answers shape the job, and so before anything else we ask what went in, roughly what quantity, and whether your motor has turned over.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave as one. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is cleaned right through because what remains won't wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs where your engine has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no problem, and it's hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
Lastly, your system is primed with fresh diesel. You head off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Nelson or in a bay outside the nearest station. It's tested on clean diesel to make sure it runs properly before we go. Because the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Nelson, for a moment
Nelson is a town in Lancashire, situated near the lakeside in the North West of England, with a population of around 34736 people. Nelson sits at an elevation of 140 metres, approximately 183 miles from London, and is close to nearby places such as Whitefield, Lomeshaye, and Bradley. Nelson has a predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting its historical development as a residential area. Nelson is located near the city of Bradford, which is 19 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Nelson and across Lancashire
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs around Nelson also cover the places around it, Whitefield, Lomeshaye and Bradley among them, and most of Lancashire beyond, across the BB postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Nelson is a town, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it is, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Nelson: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open drive is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight space behind Nelson Town Hall.
Before any quote, not after, each enquiry from Nelson opens with three checks: the liquid, the amount, and if it ran. Their answers shrink a range down to a single figure.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the price on the phone. Then you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Next to your car in Nelson, still?
Then, touch nothing — that's the best step available. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Nelson or anywhere in Lancashire.