AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Orpington? Keep It Switched Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm happens until the engine pulls it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Orpington, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the motor has been run. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Orpington: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Pocket your keys, and that stops someone switching the electrics on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about what volume? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our technicians can see.
- Call right where you are. Say a BR6 0 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the vehicle: your motor remains off.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start your pump.
- Adding more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Homefield Rise.
- Don't try to drain it yourself at the kerbside.
The attendants on duty at any Orpington forecourt — the Texaco included — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. Nothing in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of it was meant to travel that way.
It does not blend. Once it is tipped into the tank, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. It drops, since it's heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its fuel from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Ramsden last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
After it is sucked in, the harm comes in two forms. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny channels and clog filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it is flushed out. Lines carrying AdBlue spell damage overnight for a vehicle parked in Orpington. Just inside your tank, it stays stable. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, which is a second form of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and this problem is thinned fuel. No damage comes as long as it sits unused, mixed into your diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Whether your vehicle is in St Mary Cray or the heart of Orpington, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion survive the next fill.
As with petrol, there is good news. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits only in the tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere your car has stopped across Greater London.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Orpington
Many motors place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and in dim light the two may look identical. Nobody intends it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. The top-up gets rushed outside Perry Hall Primary School, because your dash flashed with a warning while the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Juglans Road. One more version: darkness, the car park by The White Hart, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
The least known cars get it the most — rentals, new ones, fleet cars, and the spare vehicle of a family with one of each fuel types. An identical slip, same first step — keep it switched off — anywhere you happen to be in Orpington or the remainder of Greater London.
Orpington: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the fuel filter, through the lines, and — with any running — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it has gone.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Broxbourne Gardens or halfway across Orpington. Once you safely can, stop and switch everything off — without turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M25, under 3 miles from Orpington, at the next junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Distance counts: each mile carries the AdBlue deeper into the system, so driving for London, under 15 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Orpington to the car park by Orpington Library. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it's caught quickly.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Orpington: what it takes
A street beside Odeon, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever your car has come to rest around Orpington, our technicians come to it. Before anything else we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if the engine has run, since those answers determine the work.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one when the tank is drained, on the spot. What remains from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than with petrol. Next, the filter: flushed, or replaced if it must be. After that fresh diesel, and then a test of your vehicle. If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The final step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. You drive off as soon as we have started it, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway around Orpington or in a space at the nearest station. Before we go, our technicians check it is running properly with new diesel in. No garage is required at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Orpington
Orpington is a locality in the London Borough of Bromley, situated approximately 13 miles southeast of central London. Orpington sits at an elevation of around 60 metres, characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Orpington is surrounded by nearby places such as Broom Hill, Goddington, and Crofton, and is home to a population of around 3683 residents.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Orpington included
AdBlue call-outs in Orpington are passed to teams that cover the places around it — Broom Hill, Goddington plus Crofton — and much of Greater London further out, across BR postcodes. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Orpington is a small village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Orpington: the cost of fixing it
Because each jobs differ, a single price would not be fair. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open driveway is easier for our van to get to safely than a tight space behind Orpington Village Hall.
With that in mind, every call from Orpington opens with the identical trio — what was put in, what quantity, if it ran — ahead of a figure. Given those replies, the range narrows to one fixed figure.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Alongside the vehicle in Orpington, right now?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Orpington or anywhere within Greater London.