AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Quarleston? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep the motor off — and your ignition as well. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens till your engine sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Quarleston, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before the engine has run. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Quarleston: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- If you're anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about how much, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a DT11 0 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- No starting the engine — not for a second, not to reposition the car.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Leave the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance down New Road.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself by the roadside.
The staff working at any Quarleston filling station — the Tesco included — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. On that drive, the car stays exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to your exhaust, treating what the engine emits. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps apart instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. When your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits underneath the diesel, which is why a car filled in Blandford St Mary last night and never switched on remains the straightforward case, as long as nobody turns the key.
Two kinds of harm come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and narrow channels; and, because it eats at certain metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it remains inside. Overnight, a car sitting around Quarleston with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it is just in that tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water gives no lubrication, which is a separate kind of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Esso's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that is the whole issue. Damage only comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside your tank, it does nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush matters more, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip — in Winterborne Stickland or the heart of Quarleston alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Dorset the vehicle is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Quarleston: how it ends up there
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — may appear the same. Nobody intends it; many layouts invite it. A bottle picked up while driving home and poured in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Blandford St Mary Church of England Primary School. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway close to Fair Mile Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside the pub in the village, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar cars see it most — rentals, brand-new cars, company cars, and the spare vehicle in a family with both fuel types. Keep it off: that's the first step to the same mistake, anywhere in Quarleston or the remainder of Dorset you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Quarleston, and the engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It has been sucked through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Norton Limekiln Coppice, say, or part way across Quarleston. Once safe, stop and switch it off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M27, under 50 miles from Quarleston, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
A quick hop across Quarleston to the car park by Bryanston Club is one matter; driving towards Salisbury, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So distance matters. Let us know about how far it had come.
Once the motor has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Long-term damage is very uncommon if it is noticed early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Quarleston
A road beside St Martin's Church, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: wherever your vehicle has stopped in Quarleston, we travel to it. The work rests on three answers, which our technicians get first — which fluid went in, the amount, and if the engine has turned over.
Then that tank is emptied where your car stands, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue won't wash away unaided, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts far more with urea than for petrol. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding your system with clean diesel comes at the end. Starting the engine comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, outside Holton Heath or on a drive around Quarleston. It's checked on fresh diesel to be sure it runs properly before our engineers head off. We do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never has to be taken to a garage. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Quarleston, for a moment
Quarleston is a locality in Dorset, situated inland at an elevation of 108 metres, approximately 100 miles west of London. Quarleston lies near several nearby settlements, including Shothole, Bryanston, and Blandford Forum, and is around 23 miles from the city of Salisbury. Quarleston has a population of around 999 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing.
Quarleston and Dorset: AdBlue drains across the area
Shothole, Bryanston and Blandford Forum are among the towns near Quarleston that the same vans reach, along with most of Dorset further out, over the DT postcode area. Ring and check instead of guessing if you are close to a county line, or anywhere awkward to explain.
Anywhere the car stands — a drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Quarleston, a small village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Quarleston: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs vary, a single price would not be honest. Three things move the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether our van can reach it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight space behind The Coade Theatre.
With that reason, every enquiry from Quarleston begins with the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, if it ran — before any figure. Given those replies, a range shrinks to one fixed number.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Next to the vehicle around Quarleston, right now?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Quarleston or wherever in Dorset, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.