AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Riccall? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave your engine off and leave the ignition off. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble starts once it's sucked through the lines — it will not ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. In Riccall, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Riccall
Do these:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly how much, save the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call just where you are. Say a YO19 6 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Don't do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: your engine remains off.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't thin it.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short distance down Saunters Way.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants working at any Riccall forecourt — the BP included — will usually help rolling it aside if you ask. On your own driveway, don't move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. Stored in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Heavier than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the very place the intake sucks from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Osgodby Common last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. What is left when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it's flushed out. Overnight, a vehicle sitting around Riccall with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it's only in the tank, it doesn't. Then there's the water: it offers no protection to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is commonly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. No damage is done while it stays unused, mixed into your diesel — only when the engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It can't just be run through, because it does not burn. Whether the car sits in Little Skipwith or the centre of Riccall, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other mistake, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the next tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in North Yorkshire the car is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Riccall
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then behind one flap — may look the same. No one means it; many designs allow it. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle bought on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
A couple of familiar ways cover most cases. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Riccall Community Primary School the top-up is hurried. After work, a bottle goes in on a driveway near Kelfield Road. Otherwise, in dim light outside Hare and Hounds, the vehicle is topped up by someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a hire car, a brand-new car, a fleet car, or the other car of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers know the least. Keep it switched off: that is the first step to the same slip, anywhere around Riccall or the rest of North Yorkshire you happen to be.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Riccall, and the engine started?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. Through the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — with any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is how far it has gone.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from Village Green, perhaps, or part way across Riccall. No restarting to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
Riccall sits under 10 miles from the M62; if you were on it, exit at the first junction and pull up safely rather than carrying on.
Mileage matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so driving for York, under 10 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Riccall to the car park by St Mary's. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where the car has come to a stop, and once your engine has run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very rare when it's spotted early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Riccall?
Wherever it has stopped in Riccall — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Riccall Institute — our van travels to your vehicle. Three replies shape the job, so before anything else our technicians ask which fluid went in, roughly what quantity, and if the motor has run.
Next, draining the tank right there removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned right through since residue will not flush out unaided. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Not run? Then count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The last step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. At that point we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space at Selby or a driveway around Riccall. We make sure it runs smoothly on new diesel before we leave. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Riccall itself
Riccall is a village situated on the banks of the River Ouse in North Yorkshire, with a low elevation of around 11 metres above sea level. Riccall lies approximately 8.9 miles south of York, making it a commuter village for the nearby city. Riccall has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are the most predominant. Riccall is close to other small villages such as Kelfield and Wistow, and is also near Dawker Hill.
Riccall and North Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Our teams that answer AdBlue call-outs around Riccall also cover the spots around it, Dawker Hill, Kelfield and Wistow among them, and most of North Yorkshire beyond, across the YO postcode area. Guessing won't help by a county line or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Riccall is a village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Riccall
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. What moves the price is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Riccall Regen Centre.
Ahead of a quote, never after, every call from Riccall opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the amount, and whether it ran. Those replies shrink a range down to a single number.
Before anyone sets off, you hear the quote on the phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Riccall: still next to your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Riccall or wherever in North Yorkshire.