Ponsanooth: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Motor off, ignition off: that is how you start if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing starts until your engine sucks it through. In Ponsanooth, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Ponsanooth: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, which stops anyone turning the power on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a TR3 7 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Do not:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short distance down Commercial Hill is too far to drive it.
- By the road, do not try draining it on your own.
Ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the island if you are at a forecourt in Ponsanooth, whether it's the Texaco or somewhere else. At home, the vehicle stays exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
It doesn't blend. Once it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. A motor filled on a driveway in Perranarworthal overnight and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the engine runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
After it's pulled in, the damage takes two forms. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny channels and clog filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. By daybreak, a car sitting around Ponsanooth with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it is just inside that tank, it doesn't. The water in it does harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Gulf and you have a problem of thin fuel. No harm comes while it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only once your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Crystals and corrosion remain through the following fill, and AdBlue separates back from your diesel, so thinning it won't help. Hence the flush counts so much, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other slip — in Perran Wharf or the centre of Ponsanooth equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Cornwall the vehicle is sitting.
Ponsanooth: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many cars put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap, and after dark the two may appear identical. No one means it. Mostly it's never the filling station: a driver buys a container heading home and pours it in at home.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. The top-up is hurried outside Kennall Vale School, because your dash lit up with a warning while the kids were dropped off. Close to St Michael's Road, someone tips a bottle in on that drive after work. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up the vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park by The Stag Hunt Inn.
Hired vehicles, brand-new cars, fleet cars, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar cars see it the most. Leave it switched off: that's the first response to an identical slip, wherever in Ponsanooth or the rest of Cornwall you are.
Ponsanooth: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Given any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed through your filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may appear, perhaps part way across Ponsanooth or returning from Stithians Showground. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of testing it again. Every start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M5, over 50 miles from Ponsanooth, at the next junction and stop safely, not carrying on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system. That's why crossing Ponsanooth to park near Church of St Michael & All Angels and a drive of under 10 miles towards Truro are such distinct jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
There's more to rinse out once your engine has run, and we do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. Spotted soon, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Ponsanooth?
A road by Ponsaooth Methodist Church, a drive, a layby or a filling station: wherever the car has come to rest in Ponsanooth, our technicians travel to it. The job depends on three answers, which our technicians get first — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if the engine has turned over.
Next, draining the tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers are there. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that's the last step. Whether it is a parking space at Perranwell or a driveway in Ponsanooth, that is where we start the car and you drive off. We check it runs smoothly on fresh diesel before leaving. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Ponsanooth
Ponsanooth is a village situated on the banks of the River Kennall in Cornwall, with a mix of detached homes and other residential properties. Ponsanooth sits at an elevation of around 35 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Burnthouse and Tresamble. Ponsanooth is located near the city of Truro, which is approximately 6 miles away, and is part of the wider South West region of England. Ponsanooth has a population of around 963 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Cornwall, Ponsanooth included
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around Ponsanooth also cover the places about it, Burnthouse, Trewedna Water and Tresamble among them, and most of Cornwall beyond, across the TR postcode area. Assuming doesn't help close to a border or somewhere tricky to describe; phone and check.
No moving is needed. In Ponsanooth, a village, a van that comes to you fits: the car is drained where it stands, whether in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Ponsanooth: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, and so not one single price is fair. Three things change the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight spot behind Ponsanooth Hall.
Ahead of any quote, not after, each enquiry from Ponsanooth begins with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether it ran. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy whilst we're on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Alongside the car around Ponsanooth, right now?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Ponsanooth or wherever in Cornwall, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran.