Saughall: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave your motor off and keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Being water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; trouble just comes once the pump begins drawing it. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully rinsed where your car stands in Saughall. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Saughall, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, which prevents someone turning the power on.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere near moving traffic.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Call right where you are. Say a CH1 6 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Never:
- Moving your car just a few yards is no reason to start the motor.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Church Way.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
The attendants working at any Saughall filling station — the BP among them — will usually help pushing it clear if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave it just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in an injection pump is made for this liquid — and no part of it was intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Shotwick overnight and has not turned since. The liquid waits at the foot of that tank, undrawn — though it would be first through once the engine runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. What remains once the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's flushed out. Pipes holding AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car sitting in Saughall. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water gives none of that, and that is a separate form of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Costco's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the main problem. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is in the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't 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 nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Lea by Backford or the middle of Saughall.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without start-up, the AdBlue stays in it — wherever in Cheshire your vehicle has stopped.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Saughall?
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, occasionally behind a single flap — can look the same. No one means it; plenty of layouts allow it. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a container bought en route home, not at the filling station.
Usually, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Saughall All Saints Church of England Primary School. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway close to Church Road. Otherwise, in dim light outside Greyhound Inn, your car is refilled by someone opening that flap for the first time.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — hire cars, new cars, company cars, and the spare vehicle of a family with both fuel types. Wherever around Cheshire, Saughall included, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
Saughall: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It's been drawn through your filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors.
Maybe coming back from Big Wood, or part way across Saughall, the engine may go lumpy, smoke, lose power, flash the dash or cut out. No restarting to check: stop once it is safe, then turn everything off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Leave the M56, under 3 miles from Saughall, by the first junction and stop somewhere safe, not driving on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue deeper into the system. That is why a hop across Saughall to park beside All Saints Church and a drive of under 5 miles towards Chester are very distinct jobs. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been started. Caught quickly, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Saughall
The car remains put, whether that is a road beside Saughall Methodist Church, a drive, a layby or a filling station in Saughall, and the van travels to it. The work depends on three answers, which our engineers ask for before all else — which fluid went in, the amount, and whether your motor has run.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. The system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Last, the fuel system is primed with clean diesel. After that our technicians start it and you head off, whether from a parking bay outside Capenhurst or a drive in Saughall. Before we leave, we check it's running correctly with new diesel in. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. At the end, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Saughall, for a moment
Saughall is a village in Cheshire, situated inland near the city of Chester, with Saughall being close to the nearby places of Sealand, Mollington, and Woodbank. Saughall has a population of around 1723 people and Saughall is characterized by its predominance of terraced housing. Saughall sits at an elevation of 29 metres, relatively low compared to other areas in the region.
Saughall and Cheshire: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs around Saughall also cover the locations around it, Sealand, Mollington and Woodbank among them, and most of Cheshire beyond, across the CH postcode area. Near a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than guessing, so phone.
Saughall is a rural village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Saughall: the cost of fixing it
Every job is different, and so no single quote would be fair. What changes the price is, first, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind War Memorial.
Before a figure, never after, every enquiry from Saughall opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and whether it ran. Given those replies, the range narrows to a single fixed figure.
Before a van heads out, you hear our price by phone. And payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, check your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Saughall: still alongside the car?
Not touching the car is, right now, the best thing you can do. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus whether it ran is everything our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest across Cheshire, Saughall too.