AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ponders End? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and the ignition too. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; trouble just starts once your pump begins drawing it. If the motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly purged where the car sits around Ponders End. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Ponders End
Do:
- Pull your keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about how much, save the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting EN3 4, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Shifting your car just a short way is no reason to start the engine.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the moment the ignition comes on, and so leave the vehicle off.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not thin it.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up Clydesdale.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it yourself.
Moving your car away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Ponders End forecourt you are on, the BP included. If you are on your own drive, leave it precisely where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is fed into your exhaust, where it treats the gas. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Heavier than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the very spot the intake draws from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it waits beneath the diesel, which is why a car topped up in Enfield Wash last night and never started stays the simple case, provided no one turns the key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. It attacks certain metals found in fuel systems, working on whatever it touches until it is removed from your system. And when the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in tiny channels. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting around Ponders End with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; where it's only in that tank, nothing changes. Then there is the water: it brings no protection to the parts that rely on it most — the injection pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Tesco and you have a problem of thin fuel. No harm comes as long as it sits put, blended into your diesel — only once the engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. It doesn't stay mixed, 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 the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Lower Edmonton or the middle of Ponders End.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere in Greater London the vehicle has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the easiest bit of any fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Ponders End
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the forecourt.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside St Mary's Catholic Primary School the refill is hurried. A driver pours the container in at home, just off Curzon Avenue, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Goat, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a company motor, or the other motor of a family with both fuels — the vehicles people know the least. Same mistake, an identical first step — keep it off — anywhere you happen to be around Ponders End or the remainder of Greater London.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ponders End?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Your filter and pipework have had it sucked along, and any running time takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Perhaps coming back from Ponders End Park, or midway across Ponders End, the engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop pace, light up the dash or cut out. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep it off rather than testing it again. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Exit the Holmesdale Tunnel, under 3 miles from Ponders End, by the next junction and park safely, not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Ponders End to the car park by Ponders End Youth Centre is a very different job from a run towards London, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to flush once the motor has run, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has come to a stop. When it is noticed quickly, permanent damage is very unusual.
Ponders End: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
The car stays where it is, whether that is a street near St Matthews Church, a drive, a layby or a forecourt in Ponders End, and the van travels to it. What got in, roughly how much, plus if the motor has turned over: our technicians ask before all else, since those decide the work.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned right through since residue will not wash out by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians turn up, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Lastly, the fuel system is primed with new diesel. Whether it is a parking space at the nearest station or a driveway around Ponders End, that is where our technicians fire it up and you set off. The check before our technicians leave is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. No garage is required at any point, with the entire job done then and there. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Ponders End, for a moment
Ponders End is a suburban area in the London Borough of Enfield, situated on the River Lee Navigation at an elevation of around 16 metres. Ponders End is located approximately 10 miles from central London and is close to nearby places such as Southbury, Brimsdown, and Enfield Highway. Ponders End has a population of around 12,154 people and is predominantly composed of flat-type housing. Ponders End is a residential community with a mix of local amenities and transport links to London.
AdBlue drains in Ponders End and across Greater London
AdBlue call-outs in Ponders End go to teams that serve the towns near it — Southbury, Brimsdown as well as Enfield Highway — and much of Greater London beyond, throughout EN postcodes. Ring and check instead of guessing if you are close to a border, or anywhere tricky to explain.
Anywhere the vehicle sits — your driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it there, with no need to take it to us; which suits Ponders End, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Ponders End
Each job differs, so no single quote is fair. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind The Qube.
With that reason, each enquiry from Ponders End opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — ahead of a quote. Given those replies, a range shrinks to a single firm figure.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Ponders End: still next to the car?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Ponders End or anywhere across Greater London.