AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Pennymoor? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition as well. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when your fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Pennymoor, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your motor has been run. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Pennymoor: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pull your keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the amount, so do not throw it out.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting EX16 8, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets the pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance up B3137.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
Rolling the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Pennymoor forecourt you're on, the the nearest petrol station included. At your own driveway, do not touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. A motor topped up on a driveway in Puddington overnight and not started since counts as the simple one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once the motor turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. 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 labouring on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. A car left standing around Pennymoor with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water content harms them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger fault?
A problem of thin fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. No harm is done while it sits unused, mixed into your diesel — only when the motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Templeton Bridge or the middle of Pennymoor.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. If your motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Devon your car is sitting.
Pennymoor: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, now and then behind a single flap — may look the same. No one intends it; many designs invite it. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Cheriton Fitzpaine Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Taylor's Hill. One more version: darkness, the car park by Cruwys Arms, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a fleet motor, or the other car in a family with one of each fuels — the cars people use the least. Wherever you are around Pennymoor or the remainder of Devon, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Pennymoor: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It's been sucked through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Perhaps returning from Eastland Copse, or part way across Pennymoor, your motor may run rough, smoke, lose power, light up your dash or cut out. No restarting to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch it off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Exit the M5, under 10 miles from Pennymoor, at the next junction and stop somewhere safe, not driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Pennymoor to the car park by Holy Cross is a very different job from a run towards Exeter, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to clean out once the engine has run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has ended up. If it's spotted soon, lasting damage is very rare.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Pennymoor: what it takes
A road beside St Michael & All Angels, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: wherever your vehicle has stopped in Pennymoor, we travel to it. Before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has run, because those answers decide this work.
Next, draining that tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. A full flush counts much more after AdBlue than after petrol, since residue won't wash away by itself. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians arrive. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that is the final step. Starting the engine comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, by Crediton or on a driveway around Pennymoor. It is checked on new diesel to confirm it runs smoothly before our technicians head off. No garage is required at any point, with the entire job done then and there. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Pennymoor itself
Pennymoor is a small village in inland Devon, situated approximately 12 miles north of Exeter and 157 miles west of London. Pennymoor sits at an elevation of 239 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Cruwys Morchard and Poughill. Pennymoor is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Pennymoor has a population of around 535 residents, making it a tight-knit community.
AdBlue drains in Pennymoor and across Devon
Over the EX postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs around Pennymoor serve most of Devon as well, Cruwys Morchard, Way Village and Poughill among them. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
No moving is needed. In Pennymoor, a rural village, a van that comes to you fits: your vehicle is emptied on the spot, be it in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Pennymoor: the cost of fixing it
Not one single price could be fair, since every job is different. The price changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Poughill Village Hall.
For that reason, each call from Pennymoor opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid was put in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before a quote. With those replies, the range shrinks to one fixed number.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before a van sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Pennymoor: still alongside the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus whether the engine ran are all our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest throughout Devon, Pennymoor too.