Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pentre-bach
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens till your engine pulls it through. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Pentre-bach. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Pentre-bach: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, so don't bin it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting CH6 6, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Shifting the car even a short way is no reason to fire up your engine.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it's pointless.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Holywell Road.
- Don't try to drain it yourself by the kerbside.
On a forecourt in Pentre-bach, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive, leave the car precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. From a separate tank it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Bryn Merllyn last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. It eats at certain metals used in fuel components, attacking whatever it touches till it is cleared from the system. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow channels. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it overnight around Pentre-bach leaves things worse. In your tank alone, waiting costs nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a second kind of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol from the Shell. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's inside your tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It can't just be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Gadlys or the middle of Pentre-bach.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Flintshire your car is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Pentre-bach?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally 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 forecourt.
Usually, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside Parkgate Primary School, because your dash lit up with a warning as the kids were taken off. Close to High Street, someone pours a bottle in on the drive after work. Otherwise, after dark outside Shippe Inn, the vehicle gets refilled by someone opening that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical slip, an identical first step — keep it off — wherever you are around Pentre-bach or the rest of Flintshire.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pentre-bach?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. The filter and lines have had it sucked along, and any running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Coed Bagillt, perhaps, or midway across Pentre-bach. Stop when safe. Turn off. Leave the vehicle off rather than testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M53, under 10 miles from Pentre-bach, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
Distance counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving towards St Asaph, under 15 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Pentre-bach to the car park by Bagillt War Memorial. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the cleaning where your car has stopped, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very uncommon if it's noticed early.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Pentre-bach
Anywhere it has come to rest around Pentre-bach — a filling station, a layby, a driveway, a street by Bagillt Jubilee Beacon — our van comes to the car. Three answers shape the work, so first our engineers ask what got in, roughly the amount, and if the engine has run.
Next, draining that tank right there takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. What remains from AdBlue will not wash away by itself, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than with petrol. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a test of your car. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no fault, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Bleeding the system with new diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, at Flint or on a driveway around Pentre-bach. The test before our engineers go is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. No workshop is needed at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. Afterwards, there is paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Pentre-bach and where it is
Pentre-bach is a small suburban area in Flintshire, situated near the coast of north-east Wales. Pentre-bach lies close to the Dee Estuary, at a low elevation of around 12 metres, and is part of the wider residential area surrounding nearby towns. Pentre-bach has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Pentre-bach is located near other small communities such as Bagillt and Whelston.
AdBlue drains around Pentre-bach and across Flintshire
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around Pentre-bach also cover the places round it, Bagillt, New Brighton and Whelston among them, and most of Flintshire beyond, across the CH postcode area. Assuming won't help close to a county line or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Pentre-bach is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Pentre-bach?
There's no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. What shifts the price is, first of all, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Bagillt Colliery.
Before any figure, never after, each call from Pentre-bach opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the amount, plus if it ran. When those are answered, a range becomes a single fixed number.
You get that price by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Check your insurance while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Pentre-bach: still beside the vehicle?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best step there is. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if the engine ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder throughout Flintshire, Pentre-bach included.