AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Shorne Ridgeway? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your engine off — and the ignition too. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. The harm begins once it's pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it will not combine with diesel. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully flushed where the vehicle sits around Shorne Ridgeway. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Shorne Ridgeway: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Which fluid, and about how much volume? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will see.
- Ring just where you are. Say a DA12 3 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Do not do these:
- Shifting your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets your pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance down Pear Tree Lane.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Shorne Ridgeway filling station — the Asda Express included — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the engine. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust to clean the fumes. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like diesel's. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. A motor filled on a driveway in Higham yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the motor turns, that is what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, working on any part it touches until it's cleared from your system. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and lodge in tiny channels. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning around Shorne Ridgeway leaves things worse. Inside that tank only, waiting does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water part harms them by itself.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have an issue of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it's in your tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits again — and the following fill won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Shorne Ridgeway or out in Thong, does more harm than nearly any other slip.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Anywhere in Kent your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Shorne Ridgeway: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, occasionally under a single flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Shorne Church of England Primary School the refill is hurried. A driver pours the container in outside their house, right off The Ridgeway, as the day ends. One more pattern: darkness, a pub car park by The See Ho, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
Hired cars, new motors, fleet vehicles, or the spare car in a home with both fuels: the least known cars get it the most. An identical slip, an identical first step — leave it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Shorne Ridgeway or the remainder of Kent.
Shorne Ridgeway: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. It has been sucked through the fuel filter and the lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Maybe coming back from Starmore Wood, or part way across Shorne Ridgeway, your engine might go rough, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or stall. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Shorne Ridgeway sits under a mile from the M2; if you were on it, leave by the first junction and pull up safely rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Shorne Ridgeway to the car park by Shorne Parish Church is a very different job from a run towards Southend-on-Sea, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Spotted early, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Shorne Ridgeway
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Shorne Ridgeway: a side street close to Shorne Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, about how much, and whether your engine has run, because those answers settle the work.
Then that tank is drained where the vehicle waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A full flush matters far more after AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains won't wash out by itself. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or changed if it has to be. Then clean diesel, then a check of the vehicle. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers turn up, provided the engine hasn't run. 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 fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking space at Higham or a drive around Shorne Ridgeway, that is where we start the car and you set off. It's tested on new diesel to confirm it runs correctly before we leave. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers want.
About Shorne Ridgeway itself
Shorne Ridgeway is a small village in Kent, situated inland at an elevation of around 98 metres, and is located near the villages of Shorne and Upper Ifield. Shorne Ridgeway is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Shorne Ridgeway sits approximately 25 miles from London and 15 miles from the city of Southend-on-Sea, making it a commuter-friendly location.
AdBlue drains across Kent, Shorne Ridgeway included
Shorne, Upper Ifield and Gadshill are among the places near Shorne Ridgeway that the same vans reach, along with most of Kent further out, over the DA postcode area. Phone and check instead of guessing if you're close to a county line, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
No moving is needed. In Shorne Ridgeway, a rural village, a van that comes to you works: your vehicle is emptied on the spot, whether on a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Shorne Ridgeway
Since each jobs differ, a single price would not be fair. What moves the price is, first of all, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Gads Hill Place.
Before a figure, not after, every enquiry from Shorne Ridgeway opens with three questions: the fuel, the amount, and if the engine ran. Given those replies, a range narrows to a single firm number.
Before a van sets off, you are told the price by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Shorne Ridgeway and still next to your car?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Shorne Ridgeway or anywhere in Kent, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran.