Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Rattery
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and the ignition too. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just comes when the pump begins pulling it. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully purged where the car sits in Rattery. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Rattery, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
To do:
- So nobody can switch your ignition on, pull your keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the product and the amount, and so do not bin it out.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting TQ10 9, or simply the name of a street nearby, so phone from the car.
Never:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your car: your engine stays off.
- Turning the key to ignition alone sets your pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it's wasted.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch up Willing Gate.
- Beside the road, don't try emptying it on your own.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you move your vehicle away from the island if you're on a forecourt around Rattery, whether it's the Blue Post Garage or somewhere else. On that drive, the car stays exactly as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, and there it treats the gas. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
It doesn't combine. After it's poured into the tank, AdBlue acts not at all like diesel. It sinks, because it is denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake draws its fuel from. A car topped up on a driveway in Tigley yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though once your engine runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of damage come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filter elements and narrow channels; and, because it eats at certain metals, every part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it stays in there. Overnight, a car sitting in Rattery with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's only in that tank, it doesn't. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate form of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Pace and you have a fault of thin fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside your tank, it causes none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following tankful, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, so watering it can't help. That is why the flush matters more, and turning your key "to see" costs more here than nearly any other slip — in Harbourneford or the heart of Rattery equally.
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 across Devon your car is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Rattery: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles waits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle picked up while driving home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside South Brent Primary School. Close to Culver Lane, someone pours a bottle in at home after work. Else, after dark outside Church House Inn, the car gets topped up by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that is the first step to an identical slip, wherever around Rattery or the rest of Devon you happen to be.
Rattery: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. The fuel filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and some running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Maybe coming back from Ashbourne Woods, or part way across Rattery, the motor may go lumpy, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or stall. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave the car off instead of restarting it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Exit the M5, under 25 miles from Rattery, by the next junction and park safely, rather than driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, and so driving towards Plymouth, under 25 miles away, makes a far bigger job than hopping across Rattery to the car park by Saint Mary's. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once the motor has been started, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Spotted early, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Rattery?
A road by Rattery Village Hall, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere your car has stopped around Rattery, we travel to it. Before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if the motor has run, because those answers decide the work.
Then that tank is drained where the car sits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since residue will not wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians arrive, provided your engine has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the last step. Starting the car comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, by Totnes or on a drive in Rattery. Our technicians check it runs correctly on new diesel before we leave. No garage is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Rattery
Rattery is a small village in Devon, situated on the banks of a river in the South West of England. Rattery sits at an elevation of 119 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby villages such as Culverlane and Brownston. Rattery is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and remains a quiet residential community. Rattery is located approximately 16.9 miles from Plymouth and 174.9 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Rattery and across Devon
AdBlue jobs around Rattery are passed to teams that cover the places around it — Culverlane, Brownston as well as Dean Prior — and most of Devon beyond, throughout TQ postcodes. Guessing doesn't help by a border or somewhere tricky to pin down; ring and ask.
Wherever the car stands — a drive at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — we empty it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits Rattery, a village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Rattery
No flat price could be fair, because every job differs. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it depends on where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Pennywell Farm.
With that in mind, each enquiry from Rattery opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid went in, what quantity, if the engine ran — ahead of any figure. Their replies shrink the range down to a single figure.
Our price is given on the call, before a van leaves; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Rattery: still next to the car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Rattery or anywhere across Devon.