Shepshed: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The harm begins once it is pulled through your lines — it will not ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Shepshed. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Shepshed: the first few minutes
To do:
- Take your keys out, so no one switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so don't bin it away.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting LE12 9, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the car.
Not to do:
- Shifting your vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Turning the key to ignition alone sets the pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it is wasted.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch down Field Street.
- Emptying that tank on your own beside the road is not worth trying.
The staff on duty at any Shepshed filling station — the Esso among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. At home, the vehicle remains just where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. From a dedicated tank it goes straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your engine lets out. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the very spot the intake sucks from. A motor topped up on a driveway in Thorpe Acre yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the motor runs, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny passages and block filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going till it's cleared out. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting around Shepshed with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it's just inside the tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water gives none of that, and that is a second form of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that's the main problem. Harm only comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and left inside the tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Belton or the heart of Shepshed, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts for more. Why: it won't stay blended, and so diluting it fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits only inside your tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere the car has come to rest across Leicestershire.
Shepshed: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars rests right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought when driving home and tipped in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical route.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Saint Winefride's Catholic Voluntary Academy, Shepshed, Leicestershire the refill is hurried. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, just off Charnwood Road, as the day ends. Else, after dark by The Blue Ball, the car gets refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
Hired cars, new cars, fleet motors, or the second car in a home with one of each: the least known vehicles see it most. Keep it switched off: that's the first response to the same mistake, wherever around Shepshed or the remainder of Leicestershire you happen to be.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Shepshed?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The fuel filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and some 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 stall — coming back from Glenmore Park, say, or midway across Shepshed. When you safely can, pull over then turn it off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Exit the M1, under a mile from Shepshed, at the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Shepshed to the car park by Shepshed Library is a very different job from a run towards Leicester, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been run. If it's caught quickly, long-term damage is very rare.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Shepshed: what it takes
Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Shepshed: a side street near Saint Botolph, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job depends on three replies, which we get first — which fluid got in, the amount, and if the engine has run.
Right there, that tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. Not run? Then count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with fresh diesel comes last. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, outside Loughborough or on a drive in Shepshed. It's checked on clean diesel to make sure it runs properly before our technicians head off. No workshop is needed at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Shepshed, briefly
Shepshed is a town situated in the English county of Leicestershire, characterized by its inland location. It serves as a market town, providing local amenities and services. Located within the Charnwood Borough, Shepshed is a notable settlement in the area, with a significant presence near the larger town of Loughborough.
AdBlue drains around Shepshed and across Leicestershire
The teams that answer AdBlue calls in Shepshed also cover the spots around it, Ringing Hill, Nanpantan and Oaks in Charnwood among them, and most of Leicestershire beyond, across the LE postcode area. Close to a border, or anywhere tricky to explain? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Wherever the vehicle stands — a driveway at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — our engineers empty it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; that suits Shepshed, a town, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Shepshed: the cost of fixing it
Because the callouts differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Shepshed Town Council.
Before a quote, never after, every call from Shepshed begins with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus if it ran. Those answers shrink a range down to a single number.
You get that quote by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Shepshed and still alongside the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Shepshed or anywhere across Leicestershire.