AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Shutta? Keep It Switched Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Shutta. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Shutta: the first few minutes
Do:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, take the keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting PL13 1, or whichever street is nearest, and our van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you are.
Things not to do:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to shift your vehicle.
- Turning your key to ignition alone sets the pump going on many diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't weaken it.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Barbican Close.
- Emptying your tank yourself beside the road isn't worth trying.
Rolling your vehicle away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Shutta forecourt you're on, the Texaco or any other. At home, your car stays exactly where it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust to treat the gases. Nothing in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of that was intended to go that way.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps separate rather than blending — entirely unlike fuel. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the same place the pickup sucks from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Looe last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
Two kinds of harm come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; and, because it eats at certain metals, every part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays inside. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting overnight in Shutta leaves it worse. In your tank only, waiting does 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.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. Harm only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left in your tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back from your diesel, so thinning it won't help. That is why the flush matters more, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other mistake — in Millendreath or the centre of Shutta alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Cornwall the car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Shutta: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors rests right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
A couple of familiar ways cover most cases. The refill gets hurried outside Looe Primary Academy, because your dash flashed with a warning as the children were taken in. A driver pours the container in at home, just off The Orchard, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Barbican Inn, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the other vehicle in a family with both fuels — the vehicles drivers use least. Anywhere across Cornwall, Shutta included, the slip does not change, and neither does the first response: keep it switched off.
Shutta: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Your filter and lines have had it pulled through, and some running time takes it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — returning from Wooldown, perhaps, or midway across Shutta. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off rather than testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
Exit the M5, under 50 miles from Shutta, by the first junction and park somewhere safe, not carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Shutta to the car park by Old Radar Station is a very different job from a run towards Plymouth, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. Long-term damage is very unusual when it's noticed quickly.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Shutta: what it takes
Wherever it has stopped in Shutta — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a road by The Wooldown torch — the van travels to the car. Which fluid was put in, about how much, plus if your motor has turned over: our engineers ask first, because those decide the work.
Then the tank is emptied where the car sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A full flush matters much more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains won't clear away by itself. Next, the filter: flushed, or changed if it must be. Then clean diesel, and then a test of the car. If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
The last step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. Whether it's a parking bay by Looe or a driveway around Shutta, that is where our engineers start it and you drive off. It is checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs smoothly before our technicians go. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Shutta, for a moment
Shutta is a small suburban area in Cornwall, situated on the coast near the town of Looe. Shutta sits at a low elevation of around 13 metres, with views out to sea and proximity to nearby beaches. Shutta is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its residential nature.
Shutta and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the PL postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs around Shutta serve most of Cornwall too, Plaidy, Barbican and East Looe among them. Close to a boundary, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking is better than assuming, so ring.
Wherever the car sits — a driveway at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits Shutta, a residential suburb, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Shutta?
No flat price could be fair, because every job differs. Three things change the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight spot behind Looe Library & Community Hub.
With that reason, every enquiry from Shutta opens with the same trio — which fluid was put in, how much, if the engine ran — ahead of a quote. Those answers narrow a range right down to one figure.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
In Shutta and still next to the vehicle?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, right now, the most useful thing you can do. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Shutta or anywhere within Cornwall.