Park Wood: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it's sucked through your lines — it will not ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully flushed where the vehicle sits in Park Wood. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Park Wood: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly what quantity, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting ME8 9, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Shifting your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short way down Deanwood Drive.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
On a forecourt around Park Wood, whether it is the BP or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the same spot the intake sucks from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, which is why a car topped up in Kemsley Street yesterday and not switched on stays the straightforward one, provided no one touches the key.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. It attacks some metals used in fuel systems, attacking whatever it reaches till it is removed from your system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. Overnight, a car sitting around Park Wood with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it is only inside the tank, it doesn't. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, which is a second kind of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the whole problem. Mixed into your diesel and left still, it is harmless for now; using the motor is the harm.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, and so it can't just be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Hempstead or the heart of Park Wood, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other error, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Anywhere in Kent the car has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still in the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to clear.
Park Wood: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars rests right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container bought when driving home and tipped in at home, instead of at the filling station, is the usual story.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside St Augustine of Canterbury Catholic Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Tyler Drive. Else, after dark outside Queens Head, your car is refilled by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It happens most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical slip, same first step — keep it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Park Wood or the remainder of Kent.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Park Wood?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. It has been sucked through your filter and your lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any might show up, maybe part way across Park Wood or coming back from Peverel Green. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the M2, under a mile from Park Wood, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Mileage matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so driving towards Southend-on-Sea, under 15 miles away, gives a much bigger job than hopping across Park Wood to the car park by Parkwood Community Centre. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is spotted quickly.
Park Wood: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that is a road beside Farthing Corner Families Association Community Centre, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station in Park Wood, and the van comes to it. What was put in, about the quantity, and whether the motor has been run: we ask first, since those decide the work.
Next, emptying the tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. A careful flush matters far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't wash out by itself. After that, the filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. Then clean diesel, and then a check of the car. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, if the engine has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no problem, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Lastly, your system is bled with clean diesel. Then we fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking bay outside Rainham (Kent) or a driveway around Park Wood. Before we go, our technicians confirm it is running smoothly with new diesel in. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Park Wood and where it is
Park Wood is a suburban area in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of 103 metres, and forms part of the wider residential landscape around Southend-on-Sea. Park Wood is characterized by its predominance of terraced housing and is located near other local places such as Farthing Corner and Wigmore. Park Wood sits within the South East region, approximately 33 miles from London, and is a relatively small community with a population of around 7107 residents.
AdBlue drains around Park Wood and across Kent
Throughout the ME postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs around Park Wood serve much of Kent as well, Farthing Corner, Wigmore and Meresborough included. Phone and ask rather than guess if you're close to a county line, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Anywhere the vehicle sits — a drive at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — we empty it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Park Wood, a residential suburb, well.
Park Wood: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job is different, so no single price would be honest. What changes the price is, first, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind St Paul's Church.
Ahead of any quote, never afterwards, each enquiry from Park Wood begins with three checks: the fuel, the quantity, plus whether it ran. When they are known, a range becomes one firm figure.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. Look at your insurance whilst we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Alongside the vehicle in Park Wood, right now?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best move you can do. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Park Wood or wherever in Kent, after you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if the engine ran.