Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Selby
Motor off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Selby, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the engine has been run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Selby
To do:
- So no one can turn the ignition on, take the keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting YO8 4, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the car.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: your engine remains off.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Gowthorpe.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
At a forecourt around Selby, whether it is the BP or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Barlby overnight and has not been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — though it will be first through once your motor runs, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage come from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel components, attacking whatever it touches till it is cleared from the system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and lodge in tiny channels. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight around Selby makes it worse. In your tank alone, time does nothing. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water gives none of that, which is a second kind of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on JET's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that's the main fault. No harm is done as long as it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only once your motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't just be run through. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Thorpe Wood or the middle of Selby.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and that tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around North Yorkshire your car is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Selby?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors waits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually happens at home, from a bottle grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. The top-up is rushed outside Selby Abbey Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, because your dash lit up with a warning as the children were dropped off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Market Place. Or someone new to that flap refills your car after dark, parked in the car park by Bar Paradise.
It takes place most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Anywhere across North Yorkshire, Selby included, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first response: keep it off.
Selby: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Via the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — on to the injection pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Cholera Burial Ground or halfway across Selby. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Keep the car off instead of restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M62, under 10 miles from Selby, at the next junction and park safely, not driving on.
Hopping across Selby to the car park by Smithson Tennant is one thing; heading towards York, under 15 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once the motor has been started, and we do all of it where the car has stopped. Caught early, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Selby: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped around Selby — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a road by Market Place — our van comes to your car. The work depends on three answers, which we get first — what got in, the quantity, and if the engine has run.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. Residue from AdBlue won't wash away unaided, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters much more with urea than for petrol. A test of the car comes last, once clean diesel is added and your filter gets flushed or, where necessary, replaced. If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians arrive. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the final step. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where the car is parked, at the nearest station or on a drive in Selby. Before leaving, we check it's running smoothly with clean diesel in. We do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never has to go to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Selby itself
Selby is a town situated on the banks of the River Ouse in North Yorkshire, with a low elevation of around 10 metres above sea level. Selby lies approximately 12 miles south of York and 162 miles north of London, making it a significant settlement in the region. Selby has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent, and the town is surrounded by nearby places such as Westfield, East Common, and Brayton. Selby has a population of around 16,667 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains around Selby and across North Yorkshire
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Selby also cover the places about it, Westfield, East Common and Brayton among them, and most of North Yorkshire beyond, across the YO postcode area. Close to a border, or somewhere awkward to explain? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
Selby is a riverside town, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
Selby: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job is different, and so no single price is honest. What changes the price is, first, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Wetherells.
Ahead of a figure, never after, each call from Selby opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the quantity, plus if it ran. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Still beside the car in Selby?
Then, the best thing to do with the car is to leave it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus if the engine ran are everything we need. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout North Yorkshire, Selby too.