Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Newdigate
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your motor. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. Being water-based, it will not ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts once the pump begins drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Newdigate, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the motor has been run. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Newdigate: the first few minutes
Do:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Which product, and about how much volume? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our engineers can know.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a RH5 5 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to move your car.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short way along Village Street.
- By the road, do not attempt emptying it on your own.
On a forecourt in Newdigate, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. On that drive, the vehicle stays exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, because it's heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its fuel from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Capel overnight and not started since is the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though when the motor runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a car parked in Newdigate with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it's only in the tank, nothing changes. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Murco and you have an issue of thin fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and left in that tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether your vehicle sits in Holmwood Corner or the centre of Newdigate, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Surrey the vehicle is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Newdigate
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — may look the same. No one means it; plenty of designs allow it. Mostly it is not the filling station: a driver buys a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Newdigate CofE Endowed Aided Infant School the top-up is rushed. Near Underhill Road, someone tips a bottle in on the drive after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Six Bells, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up the most in a rental, a new motor, a company car, or the spare vehicle of a home with one of each fuel types — the cars people know the least. Same slip, same first response — keep it switched off — wherever you are around Newdigate or the remainder of Surrey.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Newdigate?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been sucked through the fuel filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — returning from The Brocus, say, or midway across Newdigate. No starting it again to check: pull over when safe, then switch it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M23, under 10 miles from Newdigate, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Newdigate to the car park by Newdigate Village Hall is a very different job from a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been running. When it is spotted quickly, permanent damage is very rare.
Newdigate: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A road beside St Peter's Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your car has come to rest in Newdigate, our engineers come to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and whether the motor has run, since those replies decide this work.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is flushed right through because what remains won't wash out by itself. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. Then fresh diesel, then a check of the vehicle. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when your engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that's the last step. Whether it is a parking space outside Holmwood or a drive around Newdigate, that is where we fire it up and you head off. The test before our technicians go is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. As the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Newdigate
Newdigate is a village in Surrey, situated near the lakes and low-lying areas of the county, with Newdigate being around 80 metres above sea level. Newdigate sits within commuting distance of London, approximately 24.6 miles away, and Newdigate is close to nearby places such as Cudworth and Beare Green. Newdigate has a population of around 765 people, with Newdigate being characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock.
AdBlue drains across Newdigate and Surrey
Throughout the RH postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs around Newdigate reach most of Surrey too, Cudworth, Parkgate and Beare Green among them. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
A mobile service fits Newdigate, a village: you have no need to bring your car to us, because we empty it on the spot, in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Newdigate
There is no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. What shifts the cost is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind War Memorial.
That is why every call from Newdigate starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price on the phone. And payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Alongside your car around Newdigate, still?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Newdigate or anywhere around Surrey.