AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Old Windsor? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only comes once the pump starts pulling it. If the motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits in Old Windsor. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Old Windsor: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, pull the keys away.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the product and the quantity, and so don't throw it away.
- The van finds you quickest with a postcode starting SL4 2, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so keep it off.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short stretch down Church Road is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
Rolling the vehicle away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Old Windsor forecourt you are on, the BP or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It drops, since it's denser than diesel, and settles down where the intake draws its fuel from. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in Datchet last night and has not been started since. The liquid waits at the base of your tank, untouched — but it will be first through once the motor starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filters and narrow passages; and, because it attacks some metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it stays inside. Lines holding AdBlue mean harm overnight for a car parked around Old Windsor. Just in your tank, it stays the same. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger issue?
Petrol put into a diesel on Texaco's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that is the main fault. Blended through the diesel and sitting unused, it's harmless for now; running your motor is the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It does not burn, and so it cannot just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Bishopsgate or the middle of Old Windsor.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Berkshire the car is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Old Windsor: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Many cars have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Mostly it occurs 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. Hurrying, outside King's Court First School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, a parent tops up your car. Close to St Peter's Close, someone pours a bottle in on the drive in the evening. Or a driver new to that flap tops up your vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park outside Jolly Gardener.
It crops up most in a rental, a new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the spare motor in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people use the least. Keep it off: that is the first step to an identical slip, anywhere around Old Windsor or the remainder of Berkshire you are.
Old Windsor: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Your filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Lion Island, perhaps, or part way across Old Windsor. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off instead of testing it again. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M4, under 3 miles from Old Windsor, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Old Windsor to the car park by Old Windsor Memorial Hall is a very different job from a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to flush once the engine has run, and we do all of it where your car has stopped. Long-term damage is very uncommon when it's noticed soon.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Old Windsor: what it takes
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Old Windsor: a side street near St Luke, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Which fluid was put in, roughly how much, plus if the engine has turned over: our technicians ask first, since those decide the job.
Next, draining the tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through because what remains won't flush away unaided. Testing the vehicle comes last, once fresh diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, where necessary, swapped. Not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Bleeding your system with clean diesel comes at the end. After that we fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space outside Sunnymeads or a drive in Old Windsor. We check it runs properly on clean diesel before we go. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Old Windsor and where it is
Old Windsor is a village situated on the banks of the River Thames in Berkshire, with a low elevation of around 17 metres above sea level. Old Windsor lies approximately 19.9 miles west of central London, near the neighbouring communities of Sunnymeads, Wraysbury, and Datchet Common. Old Windsor has a population of around 2240 residents, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Old Windsor enjoys a riverside setting, with the Thames providing a scenic backdrop to the village.
AdBlue drains across Old Windsor and Berkshire
Throughout the SL postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs in Old Windsor serve much of Berkshire too, Sunnymeads, Wraysbury and Datchet Common among them. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
No towing is needed. In Old Windsor, a village, a mobile service works: your vehicle is drained on the spot, whether in a driveway, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Old Windsor
Since each callouts differ, a flat figure wouldn't be fair. What shifts the cost is, firstly, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind St.Peter and St.Andrew.
Ahead of a figure, not afterwards, every enquiry from Old Windsor begins with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. With them, the range narrows to a single firm figure.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. While the van is travelling, dig out your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Still next to the vehicle around Old Windsor?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Old Windsor or anywhere around Berkshire.