AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Newtown? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the engine off then keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm starts until the engine pulls it round. In Newtown, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Newtown: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, which stops someone turning the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the product and the quantity, so do not throw it out.
- Tell us a postcode starting SG9 9, or whichever street lies nearest, and the van finds you directly — so ring wherever you stand.
Things not to do:
- Shifting the car even a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts your pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- Adding more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Paddock Road.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
On a forecourt around Newtown, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the car clear of the petrol pump. Parked on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of that was meant to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the same spot the intake sucks from. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in Hare Street overnight and has not been started since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through once the motor runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage follow 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, so it keeps running on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting overnight around Newtown makes it worse. Inside the tank alone, time costs nothing. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector depend on diesel running past them, so the water part damages them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and the issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside the tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits back out of the diesel, and so thinning it won't help. That is why the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Chipping or the heart of Newtown equally.
As with petrol, there's good news. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Hertfordshire the vehicle is standing.
Newtown: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally behind a single flap — can look the same. No one intends it; plenty of designs allow it. A bottle picked up when driving home and poured in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical route.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. The refill is hurried outside Layston Church of England First School, because the dash lit up with a warning while the children were taken in. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive near Archers. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up your car after dark, parked in the car park by The Fox and Duck.
It comes up the most in a rental, a new motor, a company vehicle, or the spare vehicle of a home with both fuel types — the vehicles people use the least. An identical mistake, an identical first response — keep it switched off — anywhere you happen to be in Newtown or the remainder of Hertfordshire.
Newtown: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, after passing via your filter and pipework.
Maybe coming back from Layston Court Gardens, or part way across Newtown, the motor may run rough, smoke, lose power, flash the dash or stall. No restarting to check: stop when safe, then turn it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the A1(M), under 10 miles from Newtown, by the next junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Newtown to the car park by Buntingford Library is a very different job from a run towards Cambridge, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Very seldom does it leave lasting damage if it's noticed soon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Newtown
The vehicle remains put, whether that's a street near St Peter, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Newtown, and the van travels to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has run, since those answers settle the work.
Then that tank is emptied where the car sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. Testing the car comes at the end, after fresh diesel is added and your filter is flushed or, if necessary, swapped. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes last. Whether it's a parking bay at Ashwell & Morden or a drive in Newtown, that is where we start it and you drive off. Our engineers check it runs properly on new diesel before leaving. Because the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. At the end, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Newtown itself
Newtown is a suburban area in Hertfordshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 99 metres. Newtown lies approximately 30.9 miles from London and 18.6 miles from Cambridge, with nearby places including Buntingford, Aspenden, and Wyddial. Newtown has a population of around 4066 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Newtown is characterized by its residential community and proximity to the surrounding countryside.
Newtown and Hertfordshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the SG postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs in Newtown serve much of Hertfordshire too, Buntingford, Aspenden and Wyddial included. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Newtown is a new town, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Newtown?
Since each jobs differ, a flat price wouldn't be honest. The price moves first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind St Richard of Chichester.
That is why each call from Newtown starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it has run. Their replies shrink a range right down to one figure.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. While the van is on the way, dig out your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Next to the car in Newtown, still?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Newtown or wherever in Hertfordshire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran.