Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Northborough
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your motor off and leave the ignition off. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once the pump begins pulling it. In Northborough, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Northborough, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
To do:
- Pull your keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Which fluid, and about what quantity? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we can know.
- Tell us a postcode starting PE6 9, or whatever street is nearest, and our van finds you straight — so ring wherever you stand.
Don't:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: your motor remains off.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts the pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance down East Road.
- By the road, don't try emptying it on your own.
Rolling your car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Northborough forecourt you're on, the The Co-operative or any other. On your own driveway, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Glinton last night and never switched on stays the straightforward one, as long as no one touches your key.
Two kinds of harm come from there. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and clog filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it is cleared out. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight around Northborough makes it worse. In the tank alone, waiting costs nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is commonly worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Esso, and this issue is thinned fuel. No harm comes while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only once your engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Because it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Whether the vehicle sits in Market Deeping or the centre of Northborough, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Anywhere across Cambridgeshire your vehicle has stopped, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Northborough?
It's not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. It mostly takes place outside the house, from a container bought en route home, not at the filling station.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Northborough Primary School the refill is rushed. Near Castle Drive, a driver pours a bottle in at home in the evening. Or a driver new to that flap refills your car after dark, stopped in the car park by The Pack Horse.
Hired motors, new motors, company cars, or the second vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar cars see it the most. Same mistake, an identical first response — leave it off — anywhere you are around Northborough or the rest of Cambridgeshire.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Northborough?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. It has been sucked through your filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Etton-Maxey Pits, or part way across Northborough, your motor may go lumpy, smoke, drop pace, flash your dash or stall. Stop when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the Great North Road, under 10 miles from Northborough, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Northborough to the car park by St Andrew's Church is a very different job from a run towards Peterborough, 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.
We do all of the flushing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the engine has run there is more of it. Long-term damage is very uncommon if it's noticed early.
Northborough: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A street beside Northborough Manor House, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your vehicle has come to rest in Northborough, our engineers travel to it. Three replies shape the job, and so before anything else our engineers ask which fluid went in, roughly the amount, and whether your motor has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together after your tank is drained, right there. The system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. A test of the vehicle comes last, after clean diesel is added and your filter gets flushed or, if necessary, replaced. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we arrive, provided your engine has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking space outside Peterborough or a drive in Northborough, that is where our technicians start the engine and you drive off. It's checked on new diesel to be sure it runs smoothly before our engineers leave. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Northborough, for a moment
Northborough is a village in Cambridgeshire, situated near the Lincolnshire border and approximately 6 miles from Peterborough. Northborough sits in a low-lying area of the Fens, with an elevation of around 7 metres, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Deeping Gate and Deeping St James. Northborough has a population of around 1336 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing.
AdBlue drains across Northborough and Cambridgeshire
Deeping Gate, Deeping St James and Etton are among the places around Northborough that the same teams serve, along with much of Cambridgeshire further out, over the PE postcode area. Close to a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
Anywhere the vehicle stands — your driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — we empty it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; that suits Northborough, a rural village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Northborough?
Because the jobs vary, a flat figure wouldn't be honest. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Northborough and Deeping Gate Village Hall.
With that reason, every enquiry from Northborough opens with the identical trio — what got in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before any quote. When those are answered, a range turns into one firm number.
You hear that price on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is travelling, dig out your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Beside your car around Northborough, right now?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Northborough or anywhere around Cambridgeshire.