AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Patchway? Don't Start It
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when your fuel system draws it in. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully rinsed where your car sits around Patchway. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Patchway
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and about what quantity, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Say a BS34 5 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Never do these:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift your vehicle.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the instant your ignition comes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, so it's wasted.
- Even a short way down Rodway Road is too far to drive it.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll your vehicle off the island if you are on a forecourt around Patchway, whether it's the Esso or elsewhere. On your own driveway, don't move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Nothing in an injection pump is designed for this liquid — and no part of it was intended to go that way.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. A car topped up on a drive in Filton overnight and left unstarted is the straightforward case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but once your motor turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
After it's drawn in, the harm takes two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny channels; meanwhile, since it eats at some metals, every part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays inside. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean harm by morning for a vehicle parked around Patchway. Just in that tank, it stays the same. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel running through them, so the water part harms them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the Applegreen, and the problem is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's in the tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, so it can't simply be run through. Whether the car sits in Almondsbury or the heart of Patchway, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not stay blended, and so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits just inside the tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest in Gloucestershire.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Patchway?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars sits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. Hurrying, outside Charlton Wood Primary Academy, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone refills your car. Someone pours the bottle in outside their house, right off Cranbourne Road, as the day ends. Another version: darkness, the car park outside The Hollow Tree, and someone using that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Anywhere across Gloucestershire, Patchway included, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Patchway?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been drawn through the fuel filter and the lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
You may see the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Scott Park or halfway across Patchway. No starting it again to test: stop once it is safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M5, under a mile from Patchway, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Patchway to the car park by Patchway Library is a very different job from a run towards Bristol, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the flushing where the car has come to a stop, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Lasting damage is very unusual when it is noticed early.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Patchway: what it takes
Anywhere it has stopped in Patchway — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a street beside Callicroft Farm Track 2 — our van travels to your car. Three answers decide the work, so before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly the amount, plus if the motor has run.
Then your tank is drained where your car waits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Testing the vehicle comes last, after clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, where needed, swapped. Not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Lastly, your system is primed with new diesel. You set off as soon as we have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Patchway or in a bay at the nearest station. It is tested on new diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our technicians head off. No garage is required at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Patchway, for a moment
Patchway is a locality in South Gloucestershire, situated approximately 5.5 miles north of Bristol and 105.3 miles west of London. Patchway sits at an elevation of around 77 metres, near the villages of Over and Cribbs Causeway, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Patchway is a residential area with a population of around 5482 people, and is located near the larger town of Bradley Stoke.
AdBlue drains across Patchway and Gloucestershire
Throughout the BS postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs around Patchway serve most of Gloucestershire as well, Over, Cribbs Causeway and Bradley Stoke included. Guessing won't help by a border or somewhere tricky to describe; ring and ask.
Patchway is a small village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Patchway?
Because the jobs vary, a single figure would not be honest. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, since an open driveway is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Callicroft Farm.
Ahead of a figure, not afterwards, each call from Patchway opens with the same three checks: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether it ran. Given those replies, the range narrows to one firm figure.
Before a van heads out, you hear the price on the phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Still beside the car in Patchway?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step there is. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Patchway or wherever within Gloucestershire.