Scronkey: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and your ignition too. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Being water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage only starts when your pump begins drawing it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and thoroughly rinsed where your car sits in Scronkey. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Scronkey, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Things to do:
- Pull the keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazard lights on.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly how much, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting PR3 6, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- Many diesels power their pump the instant the ignition goes on, so leave the vehicle off.
- Adding more diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch along Lancaster Road.
- Emptying the tank yourself by the road is not one to try.
Rolling your vehicle off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Scronkey forecourt you're on, the Texaco or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it sits.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated tank it goes directly to the exhaust, treating what your engine emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It does not blend. Once it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Pilling last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue sits at the base of your tank, untouched — but it will be first through once your engine starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the components it gets to for as long as it stays there. A car left sitting around Scronkey with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. And there's the water: it offers no protection to the parts that need it most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have an issue of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is in the tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Scronkey or out in Dam Side, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Lancashire the car is standing.
Scronkey: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of cars put the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two may look the same. No one means it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. Rushing, outside St William's Catholic Primary School, Pilling, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. After work, a container goes in on a drive near Bradshaw Lane. Or the car is topped up in the car park at Elletson Arms, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar vehicles see it the most — hire cars, new ones, company cars, and the spare motor of a family with both fuel types. Wherever you are in Scronkey or the remainder of Lancashire, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Scronkey?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. With any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
Watch for rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from Lane Ends Amenity Area, perhaps, or midway across Scronkey. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
On the M6, under 10 miles from Scronkey, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
A quick hop across Scronkey to the car park by Hudswell-Clark 1885 is one thing; heading towards Lancaster, under 10 miles away, is another, since each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to clean out once your engine has been run, and we do all of it where your car has come to a stop. Lasting damage is very uncommon when it's spotted soon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Scronkey: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped around Scronkey — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a road by St William's Church — the van travels to the car. The job rests on three answers, which our technicians get first — what was put in, the amount, and whether the engine has run.
Next, emptying that tank right there takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. Your system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced if it has to be. Then fresh diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when your motor hasn't run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that's the last step. After that we start it and you head off, whether from a parking bay outside Poulton-Le-Fylde or a driveway in Scronkey. Our technicians confirm it runs correctly on fresh diesel before we leave. No garage is required at any point, with the entire job done then and there. At the end, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Scronkey
Scronkey is a small coastal hamlet in Lancashire, situated near the cities of Lancaster and Morecambe. Scronkey lies at a low elevation of around 7 metres, close to the shoreline and nearby places such as Stake Pool and Moss Side. Scronkey has a population of approximately 557 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Scronkey and Lancashire
AdBlue call-outs around Scronkey go to teams that serve the places near it — Stake Pool, Moss Side plus Fishers Row — and most of Lancashire further out, throughout PR postcodes. Phone and ask instead of guessing if you're by a county line, or anywhere awkward to explain.
Wherever the car stands — your drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our technicians drain it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; that suits Scronkey, a rural hamlet, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Scronkey: the cost of fixing it
Every job differs, and so not one single price would be honest. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open driveway is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Pilling Village Hall.
For that reason, each call from Scronkey opens by asking the same trio — what got in, how much, if it ran — before any quote. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
Before a van heads out, you are told our quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
In Scronkey and still next to the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with your car is to leave it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether the engine ran is everything we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Lancashire, Scronkey too.