Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pontypool
Motor off, ignition off: that is how you start if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The harm starts once it's pulled through your pump — it won't burn, and it will not blend with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Pontypool, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the motor has been run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Pontypool
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents anyone turning the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting NP4 6, or simply the name of a street close by, so phone from the spot.
Don't:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so keep it off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down A4043.
- By the road, do not try emptying it yourself.
On a forecourt around Pontypool, whether it's the Tesco or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car clear of the pump. On your own driveway, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle filled in Lower Race yesterday and never started remains the straightforward one, as long as no one touches the key.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, leaving it till morning in Pontypool makes it worse. Inside your tank only, time costs nothing. And there is the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that rely on it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the another forecourt nearby, and this issue is diluted fuel. Harm only comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting inside your tank, it does none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. It can't just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following tankful, and AdBlue splits back from the diesel, so thinning it can't work. Hence the flush matters more, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Penygarn or the heart of Pontypool alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Torfaen your car is standing.
Pontypool: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles waits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it's never the forecourt: a driver buys a bottle driving home and pours it in outside the house.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up the vehicle. A driver tips the bottle in at home, just off Glantorvaen Road, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap refills the car after dark, parked in the car park outside The Scrum Half.
Rented vehicles, brand-new motors, company cars, or the spare vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least known vehicles get it most. Anywhere in Torfaen, Pontypool included, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first response: keep it off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Pontypool?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. Given any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing via the filter and pipework.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Church Wood, perhaps, or part way across Pontypool. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M4, under 10 miles from Pontypool, by the next junction and park safely, rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Pontypool to the car park by Civic Centre is a very different job from a run towards Newport, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once your engine has been started, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Caught early, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Pontypool: what it takes
The car stays where it is, whether that is a street beside Pontypool Indoor Market, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station in Pontypool, and the van comes to it. The work rests on three replies, which our technicians get first — what got in, the quantity, and if the motor has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when that tank is drained, on the spot. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what remains won't clear away on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the fuel filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when the engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Bleeding the system with fresh diesel comes at the end. At that point our technicians fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space outside Pontypool and New Inn or a drive around Pontypool. Before we go, our technicians make sure it is running correctly with fresh diesel in. We do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Pontypool itself
Pontypool is a town situated in the county of Torfaen, Wales, on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 145 metres. Pontypool lies near the towns of Newport and the surrounding communities of Sowhill, Trosnant, and Cwm Fields. Pontypool has a population of approximately 11502 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Pontypool is located about 125.7 miles from London and 8.1 miles from Newport.
Pontypool and Torfaen: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue calls in Pontypool also cover the locations around it, Sowhill, Trosnant and Cwm Fields among them, and most of Torfaen beyond, across the NP postcode area. Close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so phone.
A mobile service suits Pontypool, a riverside town: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Pontypool
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. What moves the cost is, first, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Platfform Torfaen Hub.
That is why each call from Pontypool starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Their replies narrow a range down to a single number.
Our price is given during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. While the van is on the way, dig out your policy: many include misfuelling.
In Pontypool and still beside the car?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran are all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Torfaen, Pontypool too.