Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in North Weston
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Being water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only starts when your pump begins pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around North Weston, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in North Weston
To do:
- Pull your keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the amount, so don't bin it out.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting BS20 6, or simply the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Things not to do:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to move your car.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so leave the car off.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't weaken it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch along Clevedon Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
At a forecourt around North Weston, whether it's the Sainsbury's or another one, ask the staff to help you push the car clear of the pump. On that drive, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to the exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the same place the intake draws from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Dry Hill overnight and has not turned since. The liquid waits at the base of your tank, untouched — though it would be first through if the motor runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of damage. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny channels; and, since it eats at certain metals, each part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it remains in there. Overnight, a car sitting in North Weston with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it is only inside that tank, it doesn't. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the Shell, and this problem is thinned fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It can't simply be run through, since it does not burn. Deposits and corrosion stay through the next tankful, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, so watering it can't help. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Weston in Gordano or the centre of North Weston alike.
As with petrol, there's good news. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and the tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Somerset the vehicle is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around North Weston?
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside St Joseph's Catholic Primary School the top-up is hurried. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a driveway near Mead Road. Or your car is topped up in the car park at The Albion, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in North Weston or the rest of Somerset, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in North Weston, and the motor started?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It has been pulled through your filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Expect rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on your dash, or a cut-out — coming back from North Weston Park, perhaps, or midway across North Weston. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off instead of testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Exit the M5, under 3 miles from North Weston, by the next junction and stop somewhere safe, not driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across North Weston to the car park by North Weston Village Hall is a very different job from a run towards Bristol, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once the motor has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. When it's caught quickly, long-term damage is very unusual.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around North Weston
A street by Portishead Quaker Meeting House, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your car has come to rest in North Weston, our technicians travel to it. Three answers decide the job, so before anything else our engineers ask what got in, about what quantity, plus whether your motor has run.
Then that tank is drained where the vehicle waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since what remains won't flush away unaided. A test of the car follows last, after clean diesel is added and the fuel filter gets cleaned or, where needed, swapped. Engine not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Lastly, the system is primed with clean diesel. After that our engineers fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space by Nailsea & Backwell or a driveway around North Weston. The check before our technicians go is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. No workshop is needed at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About North Weston and where it is
North Weston is a small suburban area located on the coast of Somerset, near the Severn Estuary, with West Hill and Clapton in Gordano to the south. North Weston sits at a low elevation of around 10 metres, close to the town of Portishead and approximately 7.6 miles west of Bristol. North Weston has a population of around 1430 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. North Weston is also within commuting distance of major cities, including Bristol and, further afield, London, which is about 114 miles to the east.
AdBlue drains in North Weston and across Somerset
West Hill, Clapton in Gordano and Portishead are among the towns near North Weston that the same vans serve, along with much of Somerset further out, over the BS postcode area. Guessing won't help by a county line or anywhere tricky to describe; phone and ask.
A mobile service suits North Weston, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring the car to us, because our engineers drain it there, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in North Weston?
Each job differs, and so not one single price would be honest. Three things shift the price: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Portishead Shooting Club.
With that reason, each enquiry from North Weston begins with the same trio — which fluid went in, what quantity, whether it ran — before any figure. Their answers shrink the range right down to a single number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Check your policy whilst we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Still beside your car around North Weston?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across North Weston or anywhere in Somerset, after you call 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran.