Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Riddlesdown
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your engine. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm starts until the motor pulls it round. In Riddlesdown, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Riddlesdown: the first few minutes
Do these:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, pull your keys away.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and about how much, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting CR8 1, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to shift your vehicle.
- Turning your key to ignition alone sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Adding more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up Barn Crescent.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
Moving the car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Riddlesdown forecourt you are on, the Shell or any other. On your own drive, don't touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. It drops, because it is heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup takes its fuel from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits underneath your diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Russell Hill yesterday and never started stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns the key.
It does two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filter elements and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it attacks certain metals, every part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays inside. Lines holding AdBlue spell damage overnight for a vehicle parked around Riddlesdown. Only in that tank, it stays the same. And there's the water: it brings no protection to the parts that need it most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Tesco and you have an issue of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's inside your tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, and so it can't simply be run through. Whether the car is in Whyteleafe or the heart of Riddlesdown, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following fill.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever around Greater London your car has stopped, an unrun engine means the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the easiest part of a fuel system to empty.
Riddlesdown: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container picked up when driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the usual route.
Usually, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. The top-up gets rushed outside Harris Primary Academy Kenley, because your dash lit up with a warning while the children were taken off. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive close to Lower Barn Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Kenley Hotel, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new motor, a company vehicle, or the other car of a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. Anywhere across Greater London, Riddlesdown as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
Riddlesdown: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. It has been sucked through the filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Coombes Wood, or midway across Riddlesdown, the motor might go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or cut out. Once safe, pull over then switch everything off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M23, under 5 miles from Riddlesdown, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Riddlesdown to the car park by St Edmund's Church is a very different job from a run towards Westminster, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where the car has stopped. Noticed quickly, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Riddlesdown
A street beside Peter Cushing, a drive, a layby or a filling station: anywhere the car has come to rest in Riddlesdown, our technicians come to it. Which fluid was put in, about the quantity, plus whether the engine has turned over: we check first, because those shape the job.
Then your tank is drained where your car sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A full flush matters far more with AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't wash out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Finally, your system is primed with new diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, by the nearest station or on a drive around Riddlesdown. Before we go, our engineers confirm it's running properly with clean diesel in. We do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Riddlesdown, briefly
Riddlesdown is a suburban area in southern Greater London, situated approximately 12 miles from central London. Riddlesdown sits near the North Downs, with its elevation reaching around 101 metres, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Sanderstead, Purley, and Kenley. Riddlesdown is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which reflects the typical residential development of the area. Riddlesdown has a population of around 3392 people, according to recent estimates.
Riddlesdown and Greater London: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in Riddlesdown go to teams that cover the towns around it — Sanderstead, Purley plus Kenley — and much of Greater London further out, throughout CR postcodes. Near a border, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking beats guessing, and so ring.
No moving is needed. In Riddlesdown, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: your car is emptied where it stands, whether on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Riddlesdown: the cost of fixing it
Because each jobs vary, a single price wouldn't be fair. Three things move the cost: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight spot behind Kenley Memorial Hall.
Ahead of any figure, never afterwards, each call from Riddlesdown begins with three questions: the fuel, the amount, plus whether it ran. Their answers shrink the range down to a single figure.
You hear that quote by phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Next to your car around Riddlesdown, still?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Riddlesdown or wherever within Greater London, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.