Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Orlestone
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens till your engine pulls it through. In Orlestone, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Orlestone: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Take your keys out, so no one switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, and so do not throw it out.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting TN26 2, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to reposition the car.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself starts the pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel will not thin it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short distance down Ashford Road.
- By the road, do not try emptying it on your own.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you move your car off the island if you're on a forecourt in Orlestone, whether it is the Tesco or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive, leave the car just where it stands.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what the motor lets out. A fuel pump isn't made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the same place the intake draws from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Bromley Green last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting overnight in Orlestone makes it worse. Inside your tank alone, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and this problem is thinned fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's in that tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Ruckinge or the centre of Orlestone, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush matters for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following fill.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Kent the vehicle is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Orlestone
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors waits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought while heading home and poured in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical route.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. The top-up gets rushed outside Hamstreet Primary Academy, after your dash lit up with a warning as the kids were taken off. Someone pours the bottle in at home, right off A2070, as the day ends. Else, in dim light by Dukes Head, the vehicle gets topped up by someone opening that flap for the first time.
Rented vehicles, new vehicles, fleet vehicles, or the second car in a family with both fuels: the least known cars get it most. Wherever you're in Orlestone or the rest of Kent, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Orlestone?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Given any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing via your filter and lines.
Perhaps returning from Statle Wood, or part way across Orlestone, your motor may go rough, smoke, lose power, light up your dash or stall. When you safely can, stop then switch it off — without restarting to test. Every start pulls more of it through.
On the M20, under 5 miles from Orlestone, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Orlestone to the car park by St Mary, Orlestone is a very different job from a run towards Canterbury, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
Once your engine has run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has stopped. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it is caught early.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Orlestone: what it takes
Anywhere it has come to rest in Orlestone — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a road by Memorial to Noran John Tooth — our van travels to your vehicle. Three answers decide the work, so before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, about what quantity, plus whether your motor has run.
On the spot, your tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. What remains from AdBlue won't wash away by itself, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than with petrol. A test of your vehicle comes last, once fresh diesel is added and the fuel filter is flushed or, if necessary, swapped. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming your system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Whether it is a parking space at Ham Street or a driveway around Orlestone, that is where our technicians start it and you set off. Our technicians make sure it runs smoothly on clean diesel before leaving. Our engineers do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Orlestone itself
Orlestone is a small hamlet in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 52 metres, and is located near the villages of Hamstreet and Warehorne. Orlestone is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Orlestone sits within the wider countryside of the South East, approximately 17 miles from Canterbury and 51 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Orlestone and Kent
AdBlue jobs around Orlestone are passed to teams that serve the places near it — Hamstreet, The Leacon as well as Warehorne — and most of Kent beyond, across TN postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
A mobile service fits Orlestone, a rural hamlet: there's no need to bring the car to us, since we drain it on the spot, on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Orlestone?
Every job differs, and so no fixed quote is fair. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the car, because an open drive is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Pillbox.
With that in mind, each enquiry from Orlestone begins with the same trio — what went in, what quantity, whether it ran — before a quote. With them, a range shrinks to one firm number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Beside the car in Orlestone, still?
Then, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if it ran are all we ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout Kent, Orlestone too.