AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Sixpenny Handley? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your engine. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm starts until the motor sucks it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Sixpenny Handley, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your motor has run. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Sixpenny Handley: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, take the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the amount, so don't bin it out.
- Call just where you are. Quote a SP5 5 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Leave the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along Littlefield Lane.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Sixpenny Handley forecourt — the the nearest petrol station among them — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It does not blend. Once it is tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. It drops, because it's denser than diesel, and settles low where the pickup takes its fuel from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Dean overnight and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue waits at the base of that tank, untouched — but it would be the first thing through if your engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
It does two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and tiny channels; and, since it attacks some metals, every part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it remains inside. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean harm by morning for a vehicle sitting in Sixpenny Handley. Just in your tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing past them, and so the water content harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. No damage comes as long as it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only once the engine works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It does not burn, and so it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the next fill, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, and so watering it won't work. That is why the flush counts so much, and turning the key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Woodcutts or the centre of Sixpenny Handley equally.
As with petrol, there is good news. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on a fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere in Dorset the car sits.
Sixpenny Handley: 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. A bottle picked up when driving home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the usual route.
Usually, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Sixpenny Handley First School and Nursery. After work, a bottle goes in on a driveway close to Adams Lane. Another pattern: darkness, the car park outside The Roebuck Inn, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
Hired vehicles, brand-new cars, fleet motors, or the spare car in a family with one of each: the least known cars get it the most. Keep it off: that is the first step to the same mistake, wherever around Sixpenny Handley or the remainder of Dorset you are.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sixpenny Handley?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Through the filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — on to the injection pump and every injector: that's where it has gone.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or stalling: each may appear, maybe part way across Sixpenny Handley or coming back from Currier's Coppice. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M27, under 25 miles from Sixpenny Handley, at the first junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. That is why crossing Sixpenny Handley to park near St Mary and a drive of under 15 miles towards Salisbury are very separate jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once your engine has been started, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it is caught quickly.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Sixpenny Handley
A road by Sixpenny Handley Village Hall, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest in Sixpenny Handley, our engineers travel to it. Which fluid got in, about the quantity, and if the engine has turned over: our technicians ask before all else, because those decide the job.
On the spot, your tank is then emptied, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. Residue from AdBlue won't wash out by itself, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than with petrol. A test of your vehicle comes last, after fresh diesel goes in and your filter is cleaned or, where needed, replaced. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy filling station is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Lastly, the fuel system is primed with fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking space at Tisbury or a driveway in Sixpenny Handley, that is where our technicians fire it up and you set off. The check before our engineers leave is that it runs properly on new diesel. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to go to a garage. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Sixpenny Handley and where it is
Sixpenny Handley is a village in Dorset, situated inland at an elevation of around 85 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Sixpenny Handley lies near the villages of Deanland, New Town, and Deanend, and is approximately 12 miles from the city of Salisbury. Sixpenny Handley is a relatively small community, with a population of around 910 people, and is located about 90 miles west of London. Sixpenny Handley sits in a rural area, surrounded by countryside typical of the South West region.
AdBlue drains around Sixpenny Handley and across Dorset
Throughout the SP postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue jobs in Sixpenny Handley serve most of Dorset as well, Deanland, New Town and Deanend among them. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
No moving is needed. In Sixpenny Handley, a rural village, a van that comes to you works: your vehicle is emptied on the spot, be it in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Sixpenny Handley?
Each job is different, and so not one fixed price would be fair. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of your car, because an open driveway is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight gap behind Wor Barrow.
What was put in, how much, plus whether it ran: each Sixpenny Handley enquiry opens with exactly those, ahead of any figure, never afterwards. With those replies, a range shrinks to a single fixed number.
You hear that quote by phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your insurance while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In Sixpenny Handley and still next to the vehicle?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Sixpenny Handley or anywhere across Dorset.