Newtown: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble begins once it is sucked through your pump — it won't ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. Caught before the engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Newtown. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Newtown: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Which product, and about what amount? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers can see.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting GU30 7, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: your engine remains off.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not thin it.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Adams Mews.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
On a forecourt around Newtown, whether it's the Sainsbury's or another one, ask the staff to help you push the vehicle clear of the pump. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
It does not combine. After it's poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and pools down where the pickup takes its supply from. A car topped up on a driveway in Griggs Green overnight and left unstarted counts as the straightforward case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but when your motor runs, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. What remains when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it's cleared out. A car left standing in Newtown with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel running past them, and so the water content harms them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger fault?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the Shell, and this problem is thinned fuel. No harm is done as long as it sits put, blended into the diesel — only once your motor runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Crystals and corrosion remain through the next fill, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, and so thinning it won't help. Hence the flush matters more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other mistake — in Bramshott or the centre of Newtown alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Hampshire the vehicle is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Newtown?
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Usually it's never the filling station: someone buys a bottle heading home and tips it in at home.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Liphook Infant School, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone tops up the car. Someone pours the container in outside their house, just off Station Road, as the day ends. One more version: dim light, the car park by The Royal Anchor, and someone using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a fleet motor, or the other car of a home with both fuel types — the cars drivers know the least. Anywhere around Hampshire, Newtown as well, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first response: keep it off.
Newtown: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. The filter and lines have had it sucked along, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Millennium Green, say, or midway across Newtown. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the Waterlooville Bypass, under 15 miles from Newtown, by the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Newtown to the car park by St Mary's Church Centre is a very different job from a run towards Chichester, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it's noticed quickly.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Newtown: what it takes
The vehicle remains put, whether that's a street beside The Living Room Cinema, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt in Newtown, and our van travels to it. Three answers decide the job, and so first we ask what went in, about what quantity, plus whether your motor has run.
Then your tank is emptied where your car stands, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush counts much more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue will not wash away on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, by Liphook or on a drive in Newtown. Before leaving, we confirm it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Newtown itself
Newtown is a suburban area in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of 106 metres, with a mix of detached housing and local amenities. Newtown lies near the South Downs National Park, close to the villages of Liphook and Wheatsheaf Common, and is within commuting distance of Chichester. Newtown has a population of around 3335 people, and its residential areas are characterised by detached homes. Newtown is also near Cold Ash Hill, a local landmark in the area.
AdBlue drains across Newtown and Hampshire
Over the GU postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs around Newtown reach most of Hampshire as well, Liphook, Wheatsheaf Common and Cold Ash Hill among them. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Anywhere your vehicle sits — your drive at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — our technicians drain it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; that suits Newtown, a new town, well.
Newtown: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Because each jobs vary, a single price wouldn't be fair. Three things change the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight spot behind Liphook Library.
Ahead of any figure, never afterwards, every call from Newtown begins with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether the engine ran. Given those replies, a range narrows to one fixed number.
You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Still alongside the vehicle around Newtown?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Tell us it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Newtown or wherever within Hampshire.