Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Overcombe
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the engine. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm happens till your engine sucks it round. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Overcombe. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Overcombe: the first few minutes
Do these:
- So no one can turn the ignition on, pull your keys away.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting DT3 6, or simply the name of a street close by, and so call from the spot.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the car: the motor stays off.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Never drive the car anywhere, not even a short way up Bowleaze Cove Way.
- Draining that tank yourself by the road isn't one to try.
The staff on duty at any Overcombe filling station — the Sainsbury's among them — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. At home, the vehicle stays exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. No part inside an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the very place the intake sucks from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it waits beneath your diesel, which is how a car filled in Littlemoor last night and never switched on stays the straightforward one, as long as nobody turns your key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is cleared out. A vehicle left standing in Overcombe with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Morrisons's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that is the whole problem. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's in that tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, so it can't simply be run through. Whether your car sits in Radipole or the heart of Overcombe, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, and so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
As with petrol, there's good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only in the tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere the car has stopped in Dorset.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Overcombe
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. It mostly takes place outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside St Andrew's Church of England Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the car. Near Overcombe Drive, a driver tips a bottle in at home in the evening. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up your car in dim light, parked in the car park by The Spice Ship.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are in Overcombe or the remainder of Dorset, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Overcombe: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. With any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and pipework.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or stalling: each might show up, maybe part way across Overcombe or returning from Willowbrook. No starting it again to check: stop once safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M5, under 50 miles from Overcombe, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
A quick hop across Overcombe to the car park by Jordan Hill Roman Temple Remains is one matter; heading towards Wells, under 50 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once your engine has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage if it is caught soon.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Overcombe: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped in Overcombe — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by Fantasy Island Fun Park — the van comes to the vehicle. What was put in, about the quantity, and whether the engine has been run: our technicians check before all else, since those shape the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one when the tank is drained, right there. What remains from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which counts far more with urea than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, if the engine hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes last. Whether it's a parking bay by Weymouth or a drive around Overcombe, that is where we fire it up and you head off. The test before our engineers go is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. No workshop is required at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Overcombe
Overcombe is a small suburban area situated on the coast of Dorset, with a mix of detached housing and scenic views. Overcombe sits at an elevation of 23 metres, close to nearby places such as Bowleaze, Preston, and Sutton Poyntz. Overcombe is located approximately 116.7 miles from London and 40.7 miles from the nearest city, Wells. Overcombe has a population of around 1503 residents.
AdBlue drains across Dorset, Overcombe included
AdBlue jobs around Overcombe are passed to teams that serve the towns around it — Bowleaze, Preston plus Sutton Poyntz — and much of Dorset beyond, across DT postcodes. Guessing won't help close to a border or somewhere hard to describe; phone and check.
A mobile service fits Overcombe, a residential suburb: there's no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers empty it there, on a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Overcombe?
There's no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, since an open driveway is simpler for a technician to reach safely than a tight gap behind Saltmarsh Viewpoint.
Which fluid went in, how much, plus whether it ran: each Overcombe call begins with precisely that, before a quote, never after. Their replies narrow a range right down to one figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price by phone. Then you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Still next to the vehicle around Overcombe?
Then, do nothing — that's the most helpful step there is. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Overcombe or wherever within Dorset.