AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ramsden? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and your ignition as well. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the fuel system pulls it in. Caught before the engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Ramsden. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Ramsden
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Which product, and about what volume? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we will know.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting BR6 9, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Never:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the car: your motor remains off.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it's wasted.
- Even a short distance along Wilmington Avenue is too far to drive it.
- By the road, do not try draining it yourself.
Rolling the vehicle off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Ramsden forecourt you're on, the BP included. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. 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 behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. A car filled on a driveway in Chelsfield yesterday evening and not started since is the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though when the motor runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
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 is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps running on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a car sitting around Ramsden with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it's only in that tank, it doesn't. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing past them, and so the water part harms them by itself.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more significant than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Texaco's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that's the whole fault. No harm comes while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. It doesn't burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of the diesel, so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush counts so much, and turning the key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Broom Hill or the heart of Ramsden equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever across Greater London your car sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Ramsden
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts allow it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Usually, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Orion Blenheim, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. Close to Woodley Road, someone pours a bottle in at home after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The White Hart, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Same slip, an identical first step — keep it off — wherever you are in Ramsden or the rest of Greater London.
Ramsden: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through your filter and pipework.
Perhaps coming back from Goddington Park, or midway across Ramsden, your motor might go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M25, under 3 miles from Ramsden, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system. That's why crossing Ramsden to park near Unity Church and a drive of under 15 miles for London are such distinct jobs. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the motor has been run, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage if it is spotted quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Ramsden?
Anywhere it has stopped in Ramsden — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a road by Bromley Indoor Bowls Centre — our van travels to your vehicle. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if the motor has been run, because those answers settle this work.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea leave as one. A full flush matters much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains will not wash away on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. Whether it's a parking bay outside Chelsfield or a drive around Ramsden, that is where we start the engine and you head off. Before we leave, we confirm it is running smoothly with fresh diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Ramsden and where it is
Ramsden is a suburban area in Greater London, situated approximately 14 miles from central London and near the towns of Orpington and Goddington. Ramsden sits at an elevation of around 78 metres, characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Ramsden forms part of the wider London urban area, with nearby green spaces including Derry Downs.
Ramsden and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the BR postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs around Ramsden reach most of Greater London as well, Goddington, Orpington and Derry Downs included. Ring and check instead of guessing if you are by a county line, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
No towing is needed. In Ramsden, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: your vehicle is drained where it stands, whether in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Ramsden?
No flat price could be honest, because every job differs. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Orpington Bowls Club.
For that reason, every call from Ramsden begins by asking the same trio — which fluid was put in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — ahead of a quote. Their replies narrow the range right down to one figure.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the price by phone. And payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, check your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
In Ramsden and still beside the car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Ramsden or anywhere within Greater London.