Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in North End
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts when the pump begins drawing it. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around North End. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps right now, North End: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- Pull your keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so do not throw it away.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting RH19 1, or simply the name of a street close by, so phone from the spot.
Not to do:
- Do not start your motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's wasted.
- Even a short stretch down Imberhorne Lane is too far to drive the car.
- Draining the tank on your own by the road is not worth trying.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll your vehicle off the pumps if you're at a forecourt around North End, whether it's the BP or elsewhere. If you are on your own drive, leave the car just where it stands.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Stored in a dedicated tank, it is squirted into the exhaust to clean the fumes. A fuel pump isn't made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
It doesn't blend. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the same spot the intake draws from. A motor topped up on a driveway in East Grinstead yesterday evening and left unstarted is the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once the motor runs, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
Once it's drawn in, the damage comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and narrow passages; and, because it eats at certain metals, every part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains inside. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight around North End makes it worse. Inside your tank alone, time does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel flowing past them, so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
A fault of thinned fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol from the Propane, Butane gas bottles. Damage only comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and sitting inside that tank, it does nothing.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Dormans Park or the middle of North End.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the simplest part on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in there — anywhere around West Sussex the vehicle has stopped.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around North End?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought while heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the filling station, is the typical route.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. The refill gets hurried outside Halsford Park Primary School, because the dash flashed with a warning as the kids were taken in. Close to London Road, someone pours a bottle in at home after work. Or a driver new to that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park outside The Star Inn.
It happens most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that is the first response to the same mistake, anywhere around North End or the rest of West Sussex you are.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around North End?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Your filter and lines have had it sucked through, and any running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or stalling: any may show up, maybe midway across North End or coming back from Imberhorne Lane Recreation Ground. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M23, under 5 miles from North End, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
A quick hop across North End to the car park by Volume 1 Climbing is one matter; driving towards Brighton and Hove, under 25 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There is more to clean out once the engine has been run, and our technicians do all of it where the car has ended up. Caught soon, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
North End: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
We come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped in North End: a side street near St John's Felbridge, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether the motor has been run, since those answers decide the work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one after that tank is drained, right there. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Testing the car comes last, once clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets cleaned or, if needed, replaced. Engine not run? Then expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking bay at East Grinstead or a drive in North End, that is where our technicians fire it up and you drive off. It is tested on new diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our engineers leave. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done then and there. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About North End, for a moment
North End is a suburban area in West Sussex, situated near the riverside and surrounded by nearby places such as Felbridge and Baldwins Hill. North End sits at an elevation of 98 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. North End is located approximately 25.9 miles from London and 22.2 miles from the city of Brighton and Hove. North End has a population of around 2237 residents.
North End and West Sussex: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in North End go to vans that serve the places near it — Felbridge, Baldwins Hill plus Blackwell — and most of West Sussex further out, throughout RH postcodes. Assuming doesn't help by a border or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
Wherever your car sits — your drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it there, with no need to take it to us; that suits North End, a residential suburb, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in North End?
No single figure would be honest, because each job differs. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind College Chapel.
That is why each call from North End starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. Those answers shrink the range down to a single number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. As our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Still next to your car around North End?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across North End or anywhere in West Sussex, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.