AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Regent Street? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the motor off and keep your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens till your engine pulls it through. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully cleaned where the vehicle sits around Regent Street. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Regent Street, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do these:
- Take your keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- If you're anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about what amount? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we will see.
- Give us a postcode starting DL14 8, or whatever street lies nearest, and the van finds you directly — so ring from wherever you are.
Do not:
- Moving your car just a short way is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Oxford Street.
- By the road, do not try emptying it on your own.
The attendants working at any Regent Street filling station — the JET included — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. On your own driveway, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. No part in an injection pump is made for this fluid — and no part of that was meant to travel through one.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps apart instead of mixing — quite unlike fuel. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath your diesel, which is why a car topped up in Beech Terrace yesterday and never switched on stays the straightforward case, provided no one turns the key.
Two kinds of damage follow 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 components it gets to for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a car sitting around Regent Street with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it is only in the tank, it doesn't. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Asda and you have a fault of thin fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it causes none.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. It does not burn, so it cannot simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain through the next tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of the diesel, so watering it won't work. That is why the flush matters so much, and turning your key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Gray Street or the heart of Regent Street alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Wherever around Durham your car has come to rest, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue still in the reservoir: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Regent Street?
Many motors place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, occasionally behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. Nobody intends it. A bottle bought when heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical route.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Prince Bishops Community Primary School the top-up is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Wilson Street. Else, after dark by The Red Alligator, the vehicle gets refilled by someone using that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a fleet motor, or the spare motor in a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people know the least. An identical slip, same first response — keep it switched off — anywhere you are in Regent Street or the remainder of Durham.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Regent Street?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — with any running — on to the injection pump and each injector: that is where it has gone.
You may see your engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Shildon Millennium Green or halfway across Regent Street. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the A1(M), under 10 miles from Regent Street, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading for Durham, under 10 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Regent Street to the car park by The Valley Methodist Church. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the engine has been run there is more of it. Caught soon, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Regent Street
Wherever it has stopped around Regent Street — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by St Mark's Church — our van comes to the car. Before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has been run, because those replies decide this work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one after your tank is emptied, right there. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Next, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. Then clean diesel, and then a check of the vehicle. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when the motor has not run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to bleed your system on fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking space by Bishop Auckland or a drive in Regent Street, that is where our technicians fire it up and you head off. Before we go, our technicians make sure it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Regent Street and where it is
Regent Street is a locality situated in a riverside setting in County Durham, with an elevation of around 97 metres. Regent Street is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting the area's historical development. Regent Street is located near other residential areas, including Oak Street, Lime Terrace, and Elm Terrace, and is approximately 9.5 miles from the city of Durham. Regent Street has a population of around 703 residents.
AdBlue drains around Regent Street and across Durham
Our vans that answer AdBlue call-outs around Regent Street also cover the locations round it, Oak Street, Lime Terrace and Elm Terrace among them, and most of Durham beyond, across the DL postcode area. Close to a boundary, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
No towing is needed. In Regent Street, a small village, a van that comes to you works: your car is drained on the spot, be it on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Regent Street: the cost of fixing it
No single price could be honest, since every job is different. Three things shift the cost: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight space behind Eldon Community Centre.
Ahead of any quote, not afterwards, each call from Regent Street begins with three checks: the liquid, the quantity, and if the engine ran. Given them, a range shrinks to a single firm figure.
You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: many include misfuelling.
In Regent Street and still next to the vehicle?
Not touching your car is, then, the most useful thing open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Regent Street or anywhere around Durham.