Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pitts Hill
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep the ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm starts until your motor sucks it through. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Pitts Hill. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pitts Hill: the first few minutes
To do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take the keys out.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting ST6 6, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- Do not start the motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition comes on, so keep the vehicle off.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, so it is wasted.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short distance down Pitts Hill Bank.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
At a forecourt around Pitts Hill, whether it's the Murco Petroleum or another one, ask the staff to help you push the car clear of the pump. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
It doesn't blend. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. The pickup sucks fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Stanfield last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It does two kinds of damage 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, so it keeps labouring on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, leaving it till morning in Pitts Hill makes it worse. In the tank only, time costs nothing. Then there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that rely on it most — the injection pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on another forecourt nearby's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that is the main problem. No harm comes while it stays put, mixed into your diesel — only once the engine runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, and so it cannot just be run through. 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 matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Sandyford or the middle of Pitts Hill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just inside that tank, the simplest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere your car has come to rest in Staffordshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Pitts Hill: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap — can appear the same. No one means it; plenty of designs allow it. Usually it's never the filling station: someone buys a container heading home and tips it in at home.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. The refill is rushed outside Mill Hill Primary Academy, after the dash lit up with a warning as the children were dropped off. Near Benson Street, someone tips a container in at home in the evening. Or your car is topped up in the car park at Chatterley Whitfeld, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new vehicle, a fleet vehicle, or the other motor of a family with both fuel types — the cars drivers know the least. An identical slip, an identical first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you are in Pitts Hill or the rest of Staffordshire.
Pitts Hill: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Given any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
Maybe coming back from Tunstall Park, or part way across Pitts Hill, the motor might go rough, smoke, lose power, light up your dash or cut out. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the car off instead of restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
Pitts Hill lies under 10 miles from the M6; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Pitts Hill to the car park by St Michael's is one thing; driving for Stoke-on-Trent, under 5 miles away, is something else, because every mile carries the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the flushing where the car has ended up, and once your engine has run there is more of it. When it's spotted soon, permanent damage is very uncommon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Pitts Hill?
A road beside Christ Church, a drive, a layby or a filling station: anywhere your car has stopped around Pitts Hill, our engineers come to it. The job rests on three replies, which our engineers get first — which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if the engine has run.
Then your tank is cleared where the car sits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A full flush matters much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since residue won't clear out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that's the final step. Starting it comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, by Longport or on a drive in Pitts Hill. Our engineers check it runs properly on new diesel before we go. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Pitts Hill, briefly
Pitts Hill is a suburban area in Staffordshire, situated near the River Trent and close to the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Pitts Hill sits at an elevation of 163 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Pitts Hill is located near other suburban areas such as Little Chell, Turnhurst, and Great Chell, and is approximately 138.9 miles from London. Pitts Hill has a population of around 5747 residents.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Pitts Hill included
AdBlue call-outs around Pitts Hill are passed to vans that cover the towns around it — Little Chell, Turnhurst plus Great Chell — and most of Staffordshire beyond, across ST postcodes. Guessing won't help close to a county line or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
Pitts Hill 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 technicians drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Pitts Hill: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. Three things change the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the car is. That last one turns on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Tunstall Methodist Church.
What got in, how much, and if it ran: every Pitts Hill enquiry opens by asking exactly that, before a quote, not after. Those replies shrink a range down to one number.
Before anyone heads out, you hear our price by phone. And payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Pitts Hill and still alongside the vehicle?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the best move open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Pitts Hill or anywhere around Staffordshire.