AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Petersfield? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave the ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only comes when your pump starts pulling it. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully purged where the vehicle stands around Petersfield. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Petersfield, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- Keys out — then no one can power anything on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and roughly how much, save the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting GU32 3, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift your car.
- The ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel will not thin it.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way along The Square.
- Draining the tank on your own beside the road is not one to try.
On a forecourt in Petersfield, whether it's the Texaco or another one, ask the staff to help you roll your car away from the pump. At your own drive, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. It drops, because it's heavier than diesel, and settles down where the intake draws its supply from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it sits beneath your diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Weston yesterday and not started remains the straightforward case, as long as nobody turns your key.
It does two kinds of harm from there. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny passages and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going till it's flushed out. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell harm overnight for a vehicle sitting around Petersfield. Only inside your tank, it stays the same. The water in it does harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more serious than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Esso, and this issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is inside that tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Steep or the middle of Petersfield.
As with petrol, there's good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just in your tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest around Hampshire.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Petersfield
Many cars place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two may appear identical. No one intends it. Mostly it's never the filling station: a driver buys a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Petersfield Infant School. A driver tips the bottle in at home, right off Sheep Street, as the day ends. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Square Brewery, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar cars get it the most — rentals, brand-new ones, fleet cars, and the other motor in a home with one of each fuel types. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to an identical slip, wherever around Petersfield or the remainder of Hampshire you happen to be.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Petersfield?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, after passing via your filter and lines.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: any might appear, maybe midway across Petersfield or returning from Petersfield Physic Garden. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Keep the car off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Petersfield sits under 10 miles from the Waterlooville Bypass; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and stop somewhere safe rather than driving on.
Hopping across Petersfield to the car park by South Downs National Park is one thing; driving towards Chichester, under 15 miles away, is something else, since every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So distance matters. Let us know about how far it had come.
We do all of the cleaning where your car has come to a stop, and once your engine has run there is more of it. Lasting damage is very unusual when it's caught soon.
Petersfield: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Anywhere it has stopped in Petersfield — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by Petersfield Library — our van comes to your car. Three replies decide the job, so first our engineers ask what went in, roughly what quantity, and whether the motor has run.
Next, emptying that tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since what remains won't wash away by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers arrive, provided your motor has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. You drive off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Petersfield or in a bay outside the nearest station. Before leaving, we check it is running correctly with clean diesel in. Since the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Petersfield itself
Petersfield is a town situated in the South East of England, in the county of Hampshire, with a riverside setting and an elevation of 66 metres. Petersfield lies near the towns of Chichester and the surrounding villages of Causeway, Ridge Common, and Sheet. Petersfield has a population of approximately 13716 people and predominantly features detached housing. Petersfield is located 49.4 miles from London, making it a commuter town with a mix of local and regional connections.
AdBlue drains across Petersfield and Hampshire
Causeway, Ridge Common and Sheet are among the towns near Petersfield that the same vans serve, together with most of Hampshire beyond, over the GU postcode area. Close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
No towing is needed. In Petersfield, a riverside town, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is emptied where it stands, whether on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Petersfield: the cost of fixing it
Because the jobs differ, a single figure would not be honest. What changes the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Richard Churcher.
With that reason, each enquiry from Petersfield opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, if the engine ran — ahead of a quote. Once they are answered, a range turns into one firm figure.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the price by phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. As the van is travelling, check your policy: many include misfuelling.
Still beside the car in Petersfield?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Petersfield or wherever within Hampshire.