AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Rockliffe? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your motor off and keep the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. The harm starts once it's pulled through your lines — it will not ignite, and it will not blend with diesel. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully purged where the car sits around Rockliffe. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Rockliffe, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- So nobody can switch your ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting OL13 9, or just the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: the motor stays off.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Station Court.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it on your own.
At a forecourt in Rockliffe, whether it's the Texaco or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed directly to the exhaust, treating what your motor lets out. No part inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and none of that was intended to go through one.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than mixing — quite unlike fuel. It drops, because it's heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its supply from. A vehicle filled on a drive in Greave yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine runs, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
After it's pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. What is left when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it's cleared out. Overnight, a car sitting around Rockliffe with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it is only in that tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers none of that, and that is a second form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more serious than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Shell, and the problem is thinned fuel. No harm comes while it stays put, mixed into the diesel — only once the engine works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Higher Hogshead or the middle of Rockliffe.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Lancashire your car is standing.
Rockliffe: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many cars place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap, and after dark the two may look the same. Nobody means it. It mostly happens outside the house, from a bottle bought on the journey home, rather than at the filling station.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. The refill is rushed outside Bacup St Saviour's Community Primary School, after the dash lit up with a warning while the children were dropped in. After work, a bottle goes in on a drive near Pennine Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at the pub in the village, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new car, a fleet car, or the spare motor in a family with both fuels — the vehicles drivers know the least. Same slip, same first step — leave it off — wherever you happen to be in Rockliffe or the remainder of Lancashire.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Rockliffe, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. With any running, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, after passing through your filter and pipework.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or stalling: any may appear, maybe midway across Rockliffe or coming back from Stubbylee Park. No starting it again to test: pull over once safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Rockliffe lies under 10 miles from the M66; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Distance matters: each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving towards Manchester, under 25 miles away, gives a much bigger job than crossing Rockliffe to the car park by Christ Church with St John. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. When it's spotted soon, long-term damage is very uncommon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Rockliffe?
A road beside Bacup Christ Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has stopped in Rockliffe, we travel to it. What got in, about how much, and whether the engine has been run: we check first, because those decide the job.
Then that tank is drained where the vehicle sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue won't wash out by itself, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters far more with urea than for petrol. Testing your car follows at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, where needed, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers get there, provided your motor has not run. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Finally, the fuel system is bled with fresh diesel. Whether it's a parking space by Walsden or a driveway around Rockliffe, that is where our technicians start it and you set off. Our technicians check it runs smoothly on new diesel before we leave. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Rockliffe, for a moment
Rockliffe is a suburban area in Lancashire, situated on the riverside with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Rockliffe sits at an elevation of 288 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Rockliffe is located near several nearby places, including Huttock Top, Lane Head, and Bacup, and is approximately 15 miles from Manchester. Rockliffe has a population of around 4592 people, making it a small but established community.
AdBlue drains around Rockliffe and across Lancashire
The vans that answer AdBlue calls in Rockliffe also cover the locations about it, Huttock Top, Lane Head and Bacup among them, and most of Lancashire beyond, across the OL postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess if you are close to a border, or anywhere tricky to explain.
A mobile service suits Rockliffe, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our technicians empty it on the spot, on a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Rockliffe?
No flat figure could be honest, since every job is different. What shifts the price is, first of all, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and after that where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Holy Trinity.
For that in mind, every call from Rockliffe opens with the identical trio — which fluid got in, how much, if the engine ran — ahead of a figure. The answers turn a range into a straight price.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, it is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Check your policy whilst we are on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Rockliffe: still beside your car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the best thing you can do. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Rockliffe or anywhere around Lancashire.