AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sharoe Green? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and your ignition too. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts when your pump begins pulling it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly purged where the vehicle stands around Sharoe Green. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sharoe Green
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- If you're anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the quantity, and so do not throw it away.
- Call just where you are. Quote a PR2 9 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- No starting the engine — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the instant the ignition comes on, so keep the vehicle off.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short way down Black Bull Lane is too far to drive it.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
The attendants working at any Sharoe Green filling station — the Esso included — will normally lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
It does not combine. Once it is tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very spot the intake sucks from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits beneath your diesel, and that is how a car filled in Cadley last night and never started remains the straightforward one, provided no one turns your key.
Two kinds of damage come 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, so it keeps working on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. Lines carrying AdBlue spell harm by morning for a vehicle sitting in Sharoe Green. Only inside that tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water content damages them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger fault?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake at the Shell, and the issue is diluted fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside that tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. It can't simply be run through, since it does not burn. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Sharoe Green or out in Lightfoot Green, costs more than almost any other error.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Lancashire your car is standing.
Sharoe Green: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally under one flap — may appear the same. No one intends it; many layouts allow it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. The refill gets rushed outside Queen's Drive Primary School, after the dash flashed with a warning as the children were taken in. Near Sharoe Green Lane, someone pours a bottle in at home after work. Otherwise, after dark outside Crafty Beggars, your vehicle gets topped up by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet motor, or the spare car of a family with both fuels — the vehicles people know the least. Wherever you are in Sharoe Green or the remainder of Lancashire, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Sharoe Green?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. With any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed via the filter and lines.
Rough running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each may appear, maybe midway across Sharoe Green or returning from Conway Park. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M55, under a mile from Sharoe Green, at the first junction and park safely, not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That's why a hop across Sharoe Green to park near Fulwood Library and a drive of under 3 miles towards Preston are such different jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once your engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where the car has ended up. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it's noticed soon.
Sharoe Green: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A road beside St Martin, a drive, a layby or a filling station: wherever your car has come to rest in Sharoe Green, our engineers come to it. Three replies decide the job, so before anything else our engineers ask what got in, about what quantity, and whether your motor has turned over.
Then that tank is emptied where your car stands, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue won't wash out by itself, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than for petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If the engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
Priming the fuel system with new diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking bay by Preston or a driveway in Sharoe Green, that is where our technicians start the engine and you head off. It is tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs smoothly before we leave. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never has to go to a workshop. At the end, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Sharoe Green itself
Sharoe Green is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Preston in Lancashire, situated near the River Ribble at an elevation of 46 metres. Sharoe Green sits close to neighbouring areas such as Fulwood and Nooklands, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Sharoe Green is approximately 2.2 miles from Preston city centre and 191.4 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Sharoe Green and Lancashire
Fulwood, Sherwood and Nooklands are among the towns around Sharoe Green that the same vans serve, along with much of Lancashire further out, over the PR postcode area. Assuming won't help close to a border or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
Anywhere the car stands — your driveway at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — our engineers empty it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; that suits Sharoe Green, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Sharoe Green
There is no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of your car, since an open drive is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Fulwood Leisure Centre.
Ahead of any quote, never afterwards, every call from Sharoe Green opens with three checks: the liquid, the amount, and if the engine ran. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As our engineer is on the way, check your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Still next to your car in Sharoe Green?
In that case, touch nothing — that's the best step there is. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Sharoe Green or wherever in Lancashire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.