Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Quainton
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your engine off and keep the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. As it is water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage just comes once the pump starts drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Quainton, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the motor has been run. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Quainton: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call right where you are. Say a HP22 4 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Never:
- Do not start your engine, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Switching the key to ignition alone starts your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it is wasted.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up Upper Street.
- By the road, don't try draining it yourself.
The attendants on duty at any Quainton forecourt — the Gulf among them — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays apart rather than blending — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the very spot the intake draws from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it sits beneath your diesel, which is why a car topped up in North Marston last night and never started stays the straightforward one, provided no one touches your key.
It causes 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's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. A car left standing around Quainton with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers none of that, and that is a second form of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger issue?
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the another forecourt nearby, and this problem is diluted fuel. No harm comes as long as it stays unused, mixed into the diesel — only when the motor runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. It doesn't burn, and so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the next fill won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Quainton or out in Oving, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever across Buckinghamshire your vehicle has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Quainton
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a container bought en route home, rather than at the filling station.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Quainton Church of England School. Close to Church Street, a driver pours a bottle in at home after work. One more version: darkness, a pub car park outside George and Dragon, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
Hired vehicles, new vehicles, company vehicles, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles get it most. Wherever around Buckinghamshire, Quainton as well, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first response: keep it off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Quainton, and your engine started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing via the fuel filter and pipework.
Expect rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Finemere Wood, perhaps, or part way across Quainton. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Leave the car off rather than restarting it to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Quainton sits under 10 miles from the M40; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system. That is why a hop across Quainton to park beside Quainton Windmill and a drive of under 15 miles for Milton Keynes are such different jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the flushing where the car has ended up, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Noticed early, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
Quainton: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A street by Quainton Memorial Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the vehicle has stopped around Quainton, we travel to it. Before anything else we ask what was put in, about how much, and if the motor has been run, because those replies settle the work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when that tank is emptied, on the spot. Your system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. A test of the car follows at the end, once clean diesel is added and the fuel filter is flushed or, where needed, replaced. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we get there, provided the engine has not run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Lastly, the fuel system is primed with fresh diesel. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Quainton or in a bay at Aylesbury Vale Parkway. Our engineers confirm it runs smoothly on clean diesel before leaving. Because the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Quainton itself
Quainton is a village in Buckinghamshire, situated in the inland countryside of the South East region, with an elevation of around 108 metres. Quainton lies approximately 42 miles from London and 13 miles from Milton Keynes, near the villages of Shipton Lee, Pitchcott, and Waddesdon. Quainton has a population of around 901 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains in Quainton and across Buckinghamshire
Throughout the HP postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs around Quainton serve much of Buckinghamshire as well, Shipton Lee, Pitchcott and Waddesdon among them. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Wherever the vehicle stands — a drive at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; that suits Quainton, a rural village, well.
Quainton: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Each job differs, and so no single price would be honest. What changes the price is, first of all, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind St Mary and Holy Cross.
That is why each call from Quainton starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Those answers shrink the range down to a single number.
Before a van sets off, you hear our price by phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Quainton and still beside your car?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the best move open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Quainton or wherever within Buckinghamshire.