AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in New Town? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave the engine off and keep the ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The trouble begins once it's pulled through your pump — it won't burn, and it won't blend with diesel. In New Town, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
New Town, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
Do:
- Take the keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Give us a postcode starting TN22 5, or whatever street lies nearest, and our van reaches you directly — so ring from wherever you stand.
Things not to do:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to shift your car.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up Harcourt Road.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
On a forecourt in New Town, whether it's the EG or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car clear of the pump. On the drive, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust to treat the gases. A fuel pump isn't made to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like diesel's. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the very spot the pickup sucks from. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Horsted Green yesterday and not started remains the straightforward case, as long as nobody touches the key.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. It attacks certain metals found in fuel systems, working on any part it touches till it's cleared from your system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. By daybreak, a car sitting around New Town with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it's only inside that tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part damages them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Texaco and you have a problem of thin fuel. No harm is done while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only once the motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain after the next fill, and AdBlue separates back from your diesel, so watering it can't help. That is why the flush matters so much, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Ringles Cross or the centre of New Town alike.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in East Sussex the car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around New Town: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Usually, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside St Philip's Catholic Primary School the top-up is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Alexandra Road. Or your car is topped up in the car park at The Alma, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
The least known vehicles see it the most — rentals, brand-new ones, fleet cars, and the spare motor in a home with one of each fuel types. An identical slip, same first step — keep it switched off — anywhere you are around New Town or the rest of East Sussex.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around New Town?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Through the filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
Maybe returning from Selby Meadows, or part way across New Town, the engine may go rough, smoke, drop pace, flash the dash or cut out. When safe, pull over then switch everything off — with no restarting to test. Every start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M23, under 15 miles from New Town, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across New Town to the car park by Foresters Hall is a very different job from a run towards Brighton and Hove, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
New Town: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest around New Town — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Foresters Strict Baptist Chapel — our van comes to your car. Three replies decide the work, and so first we ask which fluid went in, about the amount, plus if the engine has turned over.
Then the tank is drained where your car waits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is cleaned right through since what remains won't flush out by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the fuel system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where your car is parked, by Uckfield or on a driveway in New Town. The check before we head off is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. We do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. At the end, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About New Town itself
New Town is a suburban area in East Sussex, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 29 metres. New Town lies near the towns of Uckfield and Brighton and Hove, with nearby neighbourhoods including Ridgewood and Rocks Park. New Town has a population of around 4308 people and is characterised by semi-detached housing. New Town is located within commuting distance of London, approximately 38.6 miles away.
New Town and East Sussex: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue call-outs around New Town also cover the locations round it, Uckfield, Ridgewood and Rocks Park among them, and most of East Sussex beyond, across the TN postcode area. Phone and check instead of guessing if you're close to a county line, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
New Town is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around New Town: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs vary, a flat price wouldn't be honest. Three things shift the cost: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind St Saviour.
That's why each call from New Town starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it has run. Given them, a range narrows to one fixed number.
The price is given during the call, before anyone leaves; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. As the van is travelling, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
In New Town and still next to the car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in New Town or anywhere within East Sussex.