Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ridge Green
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and your ignition too. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm starts once it is pulled through the lines — it won't ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully cleaned where the car stands in Ridge Green. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Ridge Green: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Ring just where you are. Say a RH1 5 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Shifting your vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch along Kings Cross Lane.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the verge.
Moving your vehicle away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Ridge Green forecourt you're on, the Shell included. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. From a dedicated reservoir it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays apart rather than blending — entirely unlike fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a drive in South Earlswood yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when your engine turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
Once it's pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. It attacks some metals used in fuel systems, working on any part it touches till it is cleared from your system. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow passages. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight around Ridge Green leaves it worse. In that tank alone, waiting does nothing. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel flowing through them, and so the water content damages them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and the problem is thinned fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it's inside that tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It does not burn, so it can't simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether your car is in Salfords or the middle of Ridge Green.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Anywhere across Surrey the car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of any fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Ridge Green?
Plenty of motors place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two can look the same. Nobody means it. Usually it is not the filling station: someone buys a container driving home and tips it in outside the house.
A couple of familiar ways cover most cases. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Nutfield Church CofE Primary School the top-up is hurried. In the evening, a container goes in on a drive close to Crab Hill Lane. One more pattern: darkness, the car park by The Station, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical slip, an identical first step — leave it switched off — wherever you are in Ridge Green or the remainder of Surrey.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Ridge Green?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been pulled through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or stalling: any may appear, maybe part way across Ridge Green or coming back from South Nutfield Cricket Club. No starting it again to test: stop once safe, then turn it off. Every start pulls more of it through.
Ridge Green sits under a mile from the M23; if you were on it, leave at the next junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Hopping across Ridge Green to the car park by Christ Church is one matter; heading towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to rinse out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where the vehicle has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage when it's spotted quickly.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Ridge Green: what it takes
Wherever it has come to rest in Ridge Green — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road by South Nutfield Village Hall — the van comes to your car. Which fluid was put in, about how much, plus if your motor has been run: our technicians check first, because those decide the job.
Next, emptying your tank right there removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is flushed right through since residue will not flush out by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then count on about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no issue, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to prime your system on fresh diesel. You set off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway around Ridge Green or in a bay at Nutfield. We confirm it runs smoothly on clean diesel before we leave. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Ridge Green and where it is
Ridge Green is a locality in Surrey, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 73 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Ridge Green lies near the communities of South Nutfield, Whitebushes, and Nutfield, and is approximately 19.8 miles from London. Ridge Green has a population of around 663 residents, who live in a relatively rural setting. Ridge Green is close to the city of Westminster, which is about 19.4 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Ridge Green and Surrey
Throughout the RH postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs in Ridge Green serve much of Surrey as well, South Nutfield, Whitebushes and Nutfield included. Close to a border, or anywhere tricky to explain? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
Ridge Green is a small village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Ridge Green
Because each callouts vary, a single figure wouldn't be honest. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open driveway is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Whitebushes Community Centre.
Ahead of a figure, not after, every call from Ridge Green begins with the same three checks: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether it ran. When those are answered, a range turns into a single fixed number.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the price on the phone. And you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Ridge Green: still beside the car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with your car is to leave it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Ridge Green or wherever within Surrey.