AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Nursteed? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Nursteed, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the motor has run. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Nursteed: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pull the keys out, so no one switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so don't bin it away.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting SN10 3, or just the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the car.
Not to do:
- Moving your car just a few yards is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Even a short distance up Brickley Lane is too far to drive it.
- Beside the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
The staff working at any Nursteed filling station — the Esso among them — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and no part of it was intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like diesel's. It drops, since it is heavier than diesel, and settles low where the intake draws its supply from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Etchilhampton last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of the tank, untouched — though it would be first through if the engine runs, before any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It attacks certain metals found in fuel systems, attacking any part it reaches till it's removed completely. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. Lines holding AdBlue mean damage by morning for a car parked around Nursteed. Just in the tank, it stays the same. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Murco's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that's the main issue. Mixed into the diesel and left still, it is no threat for now; running your motor is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it can't simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates again — and the next tankful won't rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of Nursteed or out in Lydeway, costs more than nearly any other error.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Wiltshire the car is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Nursteed?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside Southbroom St James Academy, after the dash lit up with a warning as the children were taken off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Osmund Close. One more version: dim light, a pub car park outside The Fox & Hounds, and someone opening that flap the first time.
Hired cars, new vehicles, company motors, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least known vehicles see it the most. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to an identical mistake, wherever in Nursteed or the remainder of Wiltshire you are.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Nursteed, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Through the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — given any running — into the injection pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Sleight Valley Golf Driving Range, say, or part way across Nursteed. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M4, under 15 miles from Nursteed, by the next junction and park safely, rather than driving on.
Mileage matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, so driving for Bath, under 25 miles away, makes a much bigger job than crossing Nursteed to the car park by Nursteed Community Centre. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to clean out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where your car has stopped. Lasting damage is very rare if it is caught soon.
Nursteed: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped in Nursteed — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a street by Devizes Leisure Centre — the van comes to the car. Three answers decide the work, so before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly what quantity, plus if the motor has turned over.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned right through because what remains won't wash out unaided. Next, the fuel filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a test of your vehicle. Not run? Then count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Starting the engine comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, by Melksham or on a driveway in Nursteed. Before we go, our engineers confirm it's running properly with fresh diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Nursteed
Nursteed is a small hamlet in Wiltshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 120 metres, and is located near the larger towns of Devizes and Chippenham. Nursteed lies within commuting distance of the city of Bath, which is approximately 17 miles away. Nursteed is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Nursteed is also close to other small settlements such as Stert and Coate.
AdBlue drains across Nursteed and Wiltshire
Over the SN postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs in Nursteed serve most of Wiltshire too, Stert, Devizes and Coate included. Ring and check rather than guess when you are by a county line, or somewhere tricky to explain.
A mobile service suits Nursteed, a rural hamlet: you have no need to take your car to us, because we drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Nursteed
Since each jobs differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. What changes the cost is, firstly, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where your car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind St James', Southbroom.
Before a figure, not afterwards, each enquiry from Nursteed opens with three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus whether it ran. Given them, a range shrinks to a single firm number.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before a van leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still alongside the vehicle around Nursteed?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Nursteed or anywhere within Wiltshire.