Shiphay: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing happens till your engine pulls it round. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Shiphay. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Shiphay: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Take the keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the product and the amount, and so don't throw it out.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting TQ2 7, or simply the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Things not to do:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Turning the key to ignition alone sets your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't thin it.
- Keep the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Marldon Road.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
The staff on duty at any Shiphay forecourt — the Shell included — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. At home, the car remains exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed straight to the exhaust, treating what your motor lets out. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
It doesn't blend. After it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts not at all like diesel. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, which is how a car topped up in Torre last night and not switched on remains the simple case, provided nobody turns the key.
After it is drawn in, the damage comes in two forms. What remains once the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and clog filters. On top of that, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it's flushed out. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning around Shiphay makes it worse. Inside the tank only, time costs nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger fault?
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is in that tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your motor on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable liquid. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits back out — and the next fill will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Shiphay or out in Chelston, costs more than nearly any other error.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere around Devon your vehicle has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue yet in the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
Shiphay: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap — may appear the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts allow it. Mostly it is never the forecourt: a driver buys a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Sherwell Valley Primary School. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway close to Dairy Hill. Or the car is topped up in the car park at Devon Dumpling, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up the most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company car, or the spare motor of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers use least. Leave it off: that is the first response to an identical slip, wherever in Shiphay or the rest of Devon you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Shiphay, and the engine started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. With any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, after passing via your filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: each may appear, perhaps midway across Shiphay or coming back from The Paddock. Once you safely can, stop then switch everything off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M5, under 15 miles from Shiphay, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not carrying on.
Hopping across Shiphay to the car park by St John The Baptist is one matter; heading towards Exeter, under 25 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it's spotted early.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Shiphay: what it takes
The car remains put, whether that is a road near Saint Andrews Church, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station in Shiphay, and the van travels to it. Three replies shape the work, and so first our engineers ask which fluid was put in, about what quantity, plus if your engine has run.
Next, emptying your tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through because what remains won't flush out unaided. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to bleed your system on clean diesel. Then our technicians fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space at Torre or a drive in Shiphay. We make sure it runs properly on new diesel before leaving. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Shiphay, briefly
Shiphay is a suburban area in Devon, situated near the coast and approximately 17 miles from Exeter. Shiphay sits at an elevation of 79 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Shiphay is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, which reflects the area's residential nature. Shiphay is close to nearby places such as Edginswell, Hele, and Cockington, and is home to a population of around 5943 people.
Shiphay and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the TQ postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs in Shiphay serve much of Devon too, Edginswell, Hele and Cockington among them. Close to a boundary, or anywhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats assuming, and so ring.
A mobile service suits Shiphay, a residential suburb: there's no need to take the car to us, because we drain it there, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Shiphay: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Each job is different, and so not one single price would be fair. What changes the price is, first of all, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where your car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Torquay Girls Grammar School.
That is why every call from Shiphay starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You get that price by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Beside the vehicle in Shiphay, right now?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, right now, the best move you can do. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Shiphay or anywhere in Devon.