AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Oakdale? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep the motor off and leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Being water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage just comes when your pump begins drawing it. In Oakdale, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Oakdale: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, and that stops anyone turning the electrics on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so do not bin it away.
- Our van locates you fastest with a postcode starting NP12 0, or just the name of a street nearby, so phone from the spot.
Things not to do:
- Shifting the vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way along Pen-Rhiw Bengi Lane.
- Do not try to drain it yourself at the roadside.
Moving your vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Oakdale forecourt you are on, the the nearest petrol station or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it stands.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
It does not combine. After it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools underneath it — the very place the pickup draws from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is how a vehicle topped up in Gwrhay yesterday and not switched on stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns your key.
Two kinds of harm 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, and so it keeps working on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. A car left sitting around Oakdale with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water part harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Asda, and the issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is in the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits back out — and the next tankful won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Oakdale or out in Penmaen, does more harm than almost any other mistake.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Anywhere in Caerphilly the vehicle has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest part of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Oakdale?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles rests right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is never the filling station: someone picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is rushed outside the local primary school, because the dash lit up with a warning while the kids were dropped off. Someone tips the container in outside their house, right off Syr Dafydd Avenue, as the day ends. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, parked in the car park by The New Forge.
It happens most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical mistake, an identical first response — leave it off — anywhere you happen to be around Oakdale or the rest of Caerphilly.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Oakdale?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. The filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Maybe coming back from Coed Cariad, or midway across Oakdale, your engine may run rough, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or cut out. Pull over when it is safe. Turn off. Keep it off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
If you were on the M4, under 10 miles from Oakdale, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Oakdale to the car park by Oakdale Library is a very different job from a run towards Newport, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
There is more to clean out once the motor has run, and we do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage when it is caught quickly.
Oakdale: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A street by Army Cadets Blackwood Detachment, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere the car has come to rest around Oakdale, our technicians come to it. The job rests on three replies, which our technicians ask for before all else — which fluid was put in, the quantity, and whether your engine has turned over.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. A careful flush counts far more with AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't wash away by itself. A test of the vehicle follows last, after fresh diesel goes in and your filter gets cleaned or, if necessary, swapped. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs where your motor hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. At that point our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space outside Newbridge or a driveway around Oakdale. Before we go, our technicians confirm it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never has to be taken to a workshop. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Oakdale, briefly
Oakdale is a village in Caerphilly, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 248 metres. Oakdale has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Oakdale is located near other small communities such as Croespenmaen and Pentref-y-groes, and is within commuting distance of Newport, the nearest city.
AdBlue drains across Caerphilly, Oakdale included
Over the NP postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs in Oakdale reach much of Caerphilly too, Croespenmaen, Pentref-y-groes and Rock among them. Guessing won't help close to a border or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
No towing is needed. In Oakdale, a village, a van that comes to you works: your vehicle is emptied on the spot, be it on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Oakdale: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Studio 54.
Ahead of any figure, not afterwards, each call from Oakdale opens with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus if the engine ran. With those replies, the range narrows to a single firm figure.
Before anyone heads out, you are told our quote by phone. And payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Oakdale and still next to your car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Oakdale or wherever in Caerphilly, after you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran.