Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Row Town
Motor off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The harm begins once it's pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it will not combine with diesel. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully flushed where the car sits in Row Town. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Row Town
Do these:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and about how much, save the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting KT15 1, or whichever street lies closest, and the van finds you directly — so ring from wherever you are.
Never:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to reposition the car.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Never drive the car anywhere, not even a short way down Franklands Drive.
- By the road, don't try draining it on your own.
Rolling your car off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Row Town forecourt you are on, the Tesco included. On that drive, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor lets out. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Ottershaw last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It does two kinds of damage from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps labouring on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Row Town makes it worse. In your tank only, waiting costs nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, and so the water content harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. Blended through your diesel and left still, it is harmless for now; using the engine does the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates again — and the next tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Row Town or out in Woodham, does more harm than almost any other error.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits only in your tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, wherever the car has stopped across Surrey.
Row Town: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of motors put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can look identical. Nobody intends it. Usually it is never the forecourt: someone buys a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. The top-up is hurried outside Holy Family Catholic Primary School, after the dash flashed with a warning while the kids were taken off. After work, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Ongar Hill. One more version: darkness, a pub car park by The Cricketers, and someone opening that flap the first time.
Rented motors, brand-new cars, company cars, or the second car in a family with both fuels: the least familiar cars see it the most. Keep it switched off: that's the first response to an identical slip, anywhere in Row Town or the remainder of Surrey you happen to be.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Row Town, and your engine started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Your filter and lines have had it pulled through, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Walton Leigh, say, or part way across Row Town. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Leave the M25, under a mile from Row Town, by the first junction and park safely, not driving on.
Mileage matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so heading for Westminster, under 25 miles away, gives a much bigger job than crossing Row Town to the car park by Holy Family Catholic Church. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There is more to rinse out once the engine has been started, and we do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Very seldom does it leave lasting damage when it's noticed soon.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Row Town
A road beside Addlestone Young People and Family Centre, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere your car has stopped in Row Town, we come to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if your motor has run, because those replies decide this work.
Then that tank is drained where your car stands, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Residue from AdBlue won't flush out unaided, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Testing the car comes last, after fresh diesel is added and the filter gets flushed or, where necessary, swapped. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your engine has not run. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no fault, and it's hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on new diesel. You drive off as soon as our engineers have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway in Row Town or in a space outside Addlestone. Before we leave, we check it's running correctly with fresh diesel in. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to go to a workshop. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Row Town itself
Row Town is a village in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of 37 metres, approximately 19 miles from London. Row Town lies near the villages of Rowhill, Addlestone, and New Haw, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Row Town is a relatively small community, with a population of around 4089 residents, and is located near the city of Westminster.
AdBlue drains around Row Town and across Surrey
AdBlue jobs in Row Town go to vans that serve the towns around it — Rowhill, Addlestone as well as New Haw — and most of Surrey beyond, across KT postcodes. Close to a border, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than assuming, and so ring.
A mobile service suits Row Town, a rural village: you have no need to take the car to us, because our engineers empty it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Row Town: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind St Pauls.
Which fluid went in, what quantity, plus if the engine ran: every Row Town call begins with precisely that, ahead of any figure, not after. Their answers shrink a range right down to one number.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. While the van is on the way, check your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Alongside the vehicle around Row Town, still?
Not touching the car is, then, the best thing open to you. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Row Town or wherever within Surrey.