AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Old Leake? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and the ignition as well. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; trouble just comes when your pump starts pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Old Leake, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your engine has run. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Old Leake: the first few minutes
To do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, take the keys away.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call right where you are. Say a PE22 9 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Do not:
- Do not start your motor, even for a moment to move your car.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run the pump.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not weaken it.
- Even a short distance along Church Road is too far to drive the car.
- Beside the road, don't try emptying it yourself.
Rolling your vehicle off the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Old Leake forecourt you are on, the Gulf included. At your own drive, don't touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust to treat 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 mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the same spot the pickup sucks from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Leverton overnight and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of that tank, untouched — but it would be the first thing through once your motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is flushed out. A motor left sitting around Old Leake with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing through them, so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger fault?
A fault of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's in your tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of Old Leake or out in Leake Hurns End, does more harm than nearly any other slip.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits only inside the tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has come to rest around Lincolnshire.
Old Leake: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one 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. Usually it's never the forecourt: a driver picks up a container heading home and tips it in at home.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Old Leake Primary Academy. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive close to Lychgate view. Otherwise, in dim light outside White Hart, your car is topped up by a driver using that flap the first time.
Hired vehicles, brand-new motors, company motors, or the spare car in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles see it most. Same mistake, an identical first step — leave it off — anywhere you happen to be in Old Leake or the remainder of Lincolnshire.
Old Leake: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each may show up, maybe midway across Old Leake or coming back from Old Leake Recreation Ground. When safe, stop then turn everything off — without restarting to see. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the A1(M), under 50 miles from Old Leake, at the first junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That's why crossing Old Leake to park near St. Mary and a drive of under 50 miles towards Lincoln are such distinct jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
We do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has ended up, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. If it is caught soon, long-term damage is very rare.
Old Leake: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Old Leake: a side street near Old Leake Community Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies decide the job, and so first we ask which fluid got in, about the amount, and if your engine has turned over.
Then the tank is drained where the vehicle stands, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Residue from AdBlue will not wash away unaided, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts far more with urea than with petrol. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or replaced, if it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no issue, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the final step. Then our technicians start the car and you head off, whether from a parking space at Boston or a driveway around Old Leake. It's checked on clean diesel to make sure it runs correctly before our technicians leave. Since the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, there is the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Old Leake, briefly
Old Leake is a village in Lincolnshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with a population of around 1173 people. Old Leake lies near the villages of Wrangle and Leverton Outgate, and is close to Leake Fold Hill. Old Leake has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant, and the village is located at a low elevation of around 6 metres above sea level. Old Leake is approximately 29.9 miles from the city of Lincoln and 105.7 miles from London.
Old Leake and Lincolnshire: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue call-outs in Old Leake also cover the places round it, Leake Fold Hill, Wrangle and Leverton Outgate among them, and most of Lincolnshire beyond, across the PE postcode area. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A mobile service suits Old Leake, a rural village: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers empty it on the spot, on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Old Leake: the cost of fixing it
Since each callouts differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. What changes the cost is, firstly, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Moat House.
What was put in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Old Leake enquiry opens with exactly that, ahead of any figure, not afterwards. With them, a range narrows to a single fixed figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told the price on the phone. Then you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
In Old Leake and still alongside the car?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move there is. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Old Leake or wherever in Lincolnshire.