AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pitsea? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep your motor off then keep your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. The trouble starts once it is sucked through the pump — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits around Pitsea. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Pitsea: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents anyone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting SS13 3, or whichever street lies closest, and the van reaches you straight — so call wherever you stand.
Don't do these:
- Do not start your motor, even for a moment to move your car.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself starts your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short stretch along High Road.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it on your own.
Rolling the vehicle away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Pitsea forecourt you are on, the Tesco included. At your own driveway, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Nothing in it is supposed 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 not at all like diesel's. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a driveway in Vange yesterday evening and left unstarted is the simple one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but once your motor runs, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It attacks certain metals found in fuel components, attacking whatever it touches till it is removed completely. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. A vehicle left sitting around Pitsea with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water gives none of that, and that is a separate kind of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more major than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the BP. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside the tank, it causes none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, since it does not burn. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's 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 Barstable or the middle of Pitsea.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest part on a fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue stays in there — wherever around Essex the vehicle has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Pitsea: how it ends up there
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, now and then under a single flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle grabbed on the journey home, not at the filling station.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. The refill is hurried outside Maple Grove Primary School, after your dash flashed with a warning while the children were taken in. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive near Broadway Link. Otherwise, after dark outside The Winged Horse, your vehicle is topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the spare vehicle in a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people know the least. Same mistake, same first response — keep it off — wherever you happen to be in Pitsea or the rest of Essex.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pitsea?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. The fuel filter and lines have had it pulled along, and any running carries it on to the injection pump and every injector.
You may see the motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Howards Park or halfway across Pitsea. No restarting to check: pull over once safe, then switch everything off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M25, under 10 miles from Pitsea, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Pitsea to the car park by Pitsea Library is a very different job from a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after your engine has been run. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it is noticed quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Pitsea?
Wherever it has come to rest in Pitsea — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a street by Saint Gabriels — our van comes to the vehicle. What was put in, about how much, and whether your motor has turned over: our engineers check before all else, because those shape the work.
Then the tank is cleared where the vehicle waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't wash out on its own. A test of your car follows at the end, once fresh diesel is added and the fuel filter is flushed or, if needed, replaced. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes last. After that we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space by the nearest station or a driveway in Pitsea. The check before our engineers head off is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Pitsea and where it is
Pitsea is a suburban area in Essex, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 17 metres, with a mix of residential and commercial development. Pitsea lies approximately 27.5 miles east of London and 9 miles west of Southend-on-Sea, near the communities of Chalvedon, Eversley, and Bowers Gifford. Pitsea is characterized by a high proportion of flat dwellings, reflecting its urbanized setting. Pitsea has a population of around 6146 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Pitsea and Essex
Over the SS postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs in Pitsea reach much of Essex too, Chalvedon, Eversley and Bowers Gifford included. Assuming won't help close to a county line or anywhere tricky to describe; phone and check.
No moving is needed. In Pitsea, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: your vehicle is emptied on the spot, whether on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Pitsea: the cost of fixing it
There is no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. The price changes first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Sandon Road Hall.
With that reason, each enquiry from Pitsea opens with the same trio — what went in, how much, whether the engine ran — before any quote. Once they are known, a range turns into one fixed figure.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, it is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
In Pitsea and still next to your car?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, right now, the best move you can do. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Pitsea or anywhere around Essex.