Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Newbottle
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep the motor off and keep your ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The harm starts once it is pulled through the lines — it will not ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Newbottle, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your engine has been run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Newbottle: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch your ignition on, take the keys out.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly how much, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting DH4 4, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to move the car.
- Your ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run the pump.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Never drive it anywhere, not even a short distance up Garden Street.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the verge.
On a forecourt in Newbottle, whether it is the JET or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car away from the pump. If you're on your own drive, leave it just where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
It does not blend. After it is poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Philadelphia last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Two kinds of harm come from there. 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, so it keeps running on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting around Newbottle with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's just in the tank, it doesn't. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel running past them, so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger issue?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that is the main fault. No damage comes while it stays put, blended into the diesel — only once your engine works on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay after the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, so watering it won't help. Hence the flush matters more, and turning your key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in New Herrington or the heart of Newbottle equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Tyne and Wear the car is sitting.
Newbottle: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not deliberate. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Mostly it is not the forecourt: a driver buys a container driving home and tips it in at home.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside Newbottle Primary Academy, after the dash flashed with a warning as the children were dropped off. A driver tips the container in outside their house, just off Front Street, as the day ends. Another version: dim light, the car park by The Sun, and someone opening that flap the first time.
The least known vehicles get it most — rentals, new cars, company ones, and the spare vehicle of a family with both fuel types. Anywhere across Tyne and Wear, Newbottle included, the slip does not change, and neither does the first response: keep it off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Newbottle?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. Via the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Maybe returning from Russell Foster 7 Pitches, or part way across Newbottle, your motor may run rough, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or cut out. Once safe, pull over and switch it off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
On the A1(M), under 3 miles from Newbottle, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to park — not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Newbottle to the car park by St. Matthew's Church & Community Hall is a very different job from a run towards Sunderland, under 5 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Permanent damage is very unusual if it's caught soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Newbottle?
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Newbottle: a side street close to St Matthew's Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has run, because those answers settle this work.
Next, emptying the tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned right through because what remains will not wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Lastly, the system is primed with fresh diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where the car is parked, by Chester-Le-Street or on a driveway around Newbottle. The check before our technicians go is that it runs correctly on new diesel. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Newbottle, for a moment
Newbottle is a village in Tyne and Wear, situated inland at an elevation of 108 metres, approximately 4.7 miles from Sunderland. Newbottle has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant in the area. Newbottle is close to other nearby places such as Grasswell, Sunniside, and Burnside, and is located about 238 miles north of London. Newbottle has a population of around 1975 residents.
AdBlue drains in Newbottle and across Tyne and Wear
AdBlue jobs in Newbottle are passed to vans that cover the places near it — Grasswell, Sunniside as well as Burnside — and most of Tyne and Wear beyond, throughout DH postcodes. Assuming doesn't help close to a border or anywhere hard to pin down; phone and ask.
Anywhere your vehicle sits — your drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits Newbottle, a rural village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Newbottle
Since each jobs vary, a single price wouldn't be honest. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, since an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight spot behind Russell Foster Building.
Ahead of a quote, not after, every call from Newbottle begins with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and if it ran. Their replies shrink the range right down to one number.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
Next to your car in Newbottle, still?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Newbottle or anywhere in Tyne and Wear.