AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Preston? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and the ignition as well. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble starts once it is sucked through the lines — it will not ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Preston, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your engine has been run. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Preston: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Which product, and roughly how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and we can see.
- Call just where you are. Say a DT3 6 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your vehicle: your engine stays off.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it's pointless.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short way down Preston Road.
- Don't try to drain it yourself by the kerbside.
Moving your vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Preston forecourt you're on, the Sainsbury's included. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, and there it treats the gas. No part inside a fuel pump is made for this fluid — and no part of that was meant to go that way.
It doesn't combine. Once it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. It drops, since it's heavier than diesel, and settles down where the intake draws its fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Littlemoor last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of damage come 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, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. Pipes holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car sitting around Preston. Only in that tank, it stays the same. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel running through them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger fault?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Morrisons's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that's the whole fault. No damage is done while it sits put, mixed into your diesel — only when your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It does not burn, and so it cannot just be run through. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Bincombe or the middle of Preston.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue stays in there — wherever in Dorset the car has stopped.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Preston?
Many vehicles put the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. Nobody means it. Mostly it's never the filling station: a driver buys a container driving home and pours it in outside the house.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside St Andrew's Church of England Primary School, because the dash flashed with a warning as the kids were dropped in. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, just off Seven Acres Road, as the day ends. Otherwise, after dark by The Bridge Inn, your car is topped up by someone opening that flap the first time.
It happens most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're around Preston or the remainder of Dorset, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Preston?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Via your filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is where it travels.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: each may appear, maybe midway across Preston or returning from Chalbury Hill Fort. Stop when safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off rather than restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M5, under 50 miles from Preston, at the first junction and stop safely, not driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, so heading for Salisbury, under 50 miles away, gives a far larger job than hopping across Preston to the car park by Preston Village Hall. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the engine has been running. If it is caught early, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Preston: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The car stays put, whether that is a street near Statue of Seven Acres, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station in Preston, and the van travels to it. The job depends on three replies, and our technicians get before all else — what was put in, the amount, and whether your engine has run.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since what remains will not flush away by itself. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your engine has not run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no issue, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that is the final step. Whether it's a parking space outside Upwey or a drive around Preston, that is where we start it and you head off. The check before our technicians head off is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. We do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Preston, for a moment
Preston is a coastal suburban area in Dorset, situated near the towns of Weymouth and Sutton Poyntz. Preston sits at a low elevation of around 17 metres, close to the sea and overlooking the coastline of the English Channel. Preston is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential area. Preston is also near to other local places such as Bowleaze and Overcombe.
Preston and Dorset: AdBlue drains across the area
Sutton Poyntz, Bowleaze and Overcombe are among the towns around Preston that the same vans reach, along with much of Dorset further out, throughout the DT postcode area. Ring and check rather than guess when you're close to a county line, or somewhere tricky to pin down.
A van that comes to you suits Preston, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring your car to us, since our engineers empty it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Preston?
There is no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Saint Andrew's Church.
That is why every call from Preston starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. Once they are answered, a range becomes a single fixed number.
Before a van heads out, you hear the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. As the van is travelling, check your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Preston: still next to the vehicle?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Preston or wherever in Dorset, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.