AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ringwood? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. The harm begins once it's sucked through your lines — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Ringwood, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your motor has run. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Ringwood: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, pull your keys out.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly what quantity, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting BH24 1, or whichever street lies nearest, and our van finds you directly — so call wherever you are.
Things not to do:
- Don't start your engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition goes on, and so keep the car off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel won't thin it.
- Even a short stretch down Christchurch Road is too far to drive it.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it yourself.
Get the people behind the counter to help you roll your vehicle off the pumps if you're on a forecourt around Ringwood, whether it is the Esso or somewhere else. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump cannot take urea.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools underneath it — the same spot the pickup draws from. A motor topped up on a drive in Blashford overnight and not started since is the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but when your engine turns, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going till it's flushed out. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, waiting till morning around Ringwood makes things worse. In that tank only, time does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector need diesel running through them, so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
A problem of thinned fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol from the Texaco. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and left in your tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Poulner or the middle of Ringwood.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Wherever in Hampshire your car has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Ringwood: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then under a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Ringwood Church of England Infant School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone refills your car. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway close to High Street. One more version: dim light, a pub car park outside The Crown Tap, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
The least familiar cars get it most — hire cars, new ones, company ones, and the spare vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types. Leave it off: that is the first response to the same mistake, anywhere around Ringwood or the remainder of Hampshire you happen to be.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Ringwood?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. Your filter and lines have had it sucked through, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from War Memorial Gardens, perhaps, or part way across Ringwood. When you safely can, stop then switch it off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Ringwood lies under 10 miles from the M27; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into the system, so heading for Salisbury, under 25 miles away, makes a much bigger job than crossing Ringwood to the car park by Friday's Cross. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out once your engine has been run. Caught quickly, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Ringwood
Wherever it has come to rest around Ringwood — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a road by Old Fine Art Gallery — our van travels to your vehicle. Three answers shape the work, so before anything else our technicians ask which fluid got in, roughly the amount, plus whether the motor has turned over.
Next, draining your tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Testing your vehicle comes at the end, after clean diesel is added and the filter gets flushed or, if needed, swapped. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that's the final step. You set off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive around Ringwood or in a bay by Hinton Admiral. The check before our technicians leave is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. We do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Ringwood and where it is
Ringwood is a town situated on the River Avon in Hampshire, with a low elevation of around 16 metres above sea level. Ringwood lies on the western edge of the New Forest, near the villages of Ashley and Moortown, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Ringwood is also close to other nearby places, including The Holdings, and is within commuting distance of the city of Salisbury, which is approximately 15.5 miles away. Ringwood has a population of around 10,024 people and is located about 85.3 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Ringwood and across Hampshire
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls in Ringwood also cover the locations round it, Ashley, Moortown and The Holdings among them, and most of Hampshire beyond, across the BH postcode area. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Ringwood is a riverside town, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Ringwood: the cost of fixing it
No single figure would be honest, since each job is different. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Ringwood Meeting House & History Centre.
That is why every call from Ringwood starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it has run. Given them, the range shrinks to one fixed number.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, check your policy: many include misfuelling.
Alongside your car around Ringwood, still?
Then, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Ringwood or anywhere within Hampshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.