Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Silchester
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm happens until the engine sucks it through. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your car sits around Silchester. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Silchester, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
To do:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents someone turning the power on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and roughly what quantity, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting RG7 2, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your vehicle: the motor stays off.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant your ignition goes on, and so keep it off.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, and so it's wasted.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Holly Lane.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the verge.
The attendants working at any Silchester forecourt — the Esso included — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. Stored in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust to treat the gases. A fuel pump isn't made to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, since it's denser than diesel, and pools down where the intake takes its supply from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Latchmere Green yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the simple one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
From there it does two kinds of damage. 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, and so it keeps working on the components it gets to for as long as it stays there. A motor left sitting around Silchester with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more significant than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that's the main problem. No damage is done while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only once the engine works on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. It doesn't burn, and so it can't simply be run through. Whether your vehicle sits in Tadley Bottom or the centre of Silchester, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't stay blended, and so watering it down fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Hampshire the car is sitting.
Silchester: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Silchester Church of England Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. Close to Whistlers Lane, someone tips a bottle in on that drive after work. Otherwise, in dim light outside The Calleva Arms, your car gets refilled by a driver using that flap the first time.
It happens most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are in Silchester or the rest of Hampshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Silchester?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. The fuel filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and any running time carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each might show up, perhaps part way across Silchester or coming back from Silchester Common. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the car off instead of restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M4, under 10 miles from Silchester, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Hopping across Silchester to the car park by Silchester Village Hall is one matter; heading for Winchester, under 25 miles away, is another, since each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So distance counts. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the engine has been running. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it's noticed quickly.
Silchester: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
We come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Silchester: a side street close to War Memorial, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies decide the job, so before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about what quantity, and whether the motor has turned over.
Right there, that tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Testing your car follows last, once clean diesel goes in and your filter gets cleaned or, where needed, replaced. Engine not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
The last step is to bleed your system on clean diesel. You drive off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Silchester or in a space at Bramley (Hants). Our engineers check it runs correctly on new diesel before leaving. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Silchester, for a moment
Silchester is a rural village in Hampshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 102 metres, approximately 43 miles west of London. Silchester lies near the towns of Winchester and Basingstoke, and is close to smaller settlements such as Three Ashes and Pamber Heath. Silchester has a population of around 788 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Silchester is characterised by its quiet, residential atmosphere and surrounding countryside.
AdBlue drains around Silchester and across Hampshire
AdBlue call-outs around Silchester are passed to vans that cover the places near it — Three Ashes, Pamber Heath as well as Mortimer West End — and much of Hampshire further out, across RG postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
Silchester is a rural village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
Silchester: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open driveway is simpler for a technician to reach safely than a tight space behind The Frith.
Before a figure, never afterwards, each call from Silchester begins with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus whether it ran. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Silchester: still alongside your car?
Not touching the car is, right now, the most useful move open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if the engine ran are everything our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout Hampshire, Silchester included.