Sleight: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Motor off, ignition off: that is how you start if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm begins once it's pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it will not blend with diesel. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Sleight. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Sleight: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call just where you are. Say a BH21 3 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Never:
- Do not start your motor, even for a moment to move your car.
- Turning the key to ignition alone sets your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it's pointless.
- Never drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch up Brog Street.
- Draining that tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Moving your car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Sleight forecourt you are on, the Esso included. At home, the vehicle remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate rather than blending — entirely different from fuel. It sinks, because it is heavier than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its supply from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Corfe Mullen last night and hasn't been started since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, undrawn — but it would be first through once your motor runs, before any diesel at all.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. It eats at some metals found in fuel components, attacking whatever it reaches till it's removed completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow passages. By daybreak, a car sitting in Sleight with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it's just in your tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it flows; water gives none of that, and that is a second form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more serious than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the BP. Blended through your diesel and left unused, it is no threat for now; running the motor is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Whether your vehicle sits in Rushcombe Bottom or the heart of Sleight, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake, and the flush matters for more. Why: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion survive the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Dorset your car is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Sleight: how it ends up there
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and mixing them up is easy after dark. A bottle bought while heading home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical route.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. The top-up is rushed outside Henbury View First School, because your dash lit up with a warning as the kids were dropped off. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive close to Blandford Road. Or someone new to that flap refills your car in dim light, parked in the car park outside The Coventry Arms.
It occurs most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are in Sleight or the rest of Dorset, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sleight, and your engine started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through your filter, along the pipework, and — given any running — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it travels.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Withy Bed, say, or part way across Sleight. When safe, stop and turn everything off — without restarting to see. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M27, under 25 miles from Sleight, the next junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system. That is why crossing Sleight to park near Corfe Mullen Cemetery Chapel and a drive of under 25 miles for Salisbury are such separate jobs. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to clean out once the motor has been started, and our engineers do all of it where your car has come to a stop. If it's spotted early, permanent damage is very uncommon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Sleight
Wherever it has stopped around Sleight — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street beside The chapel in the valley — our van comes to your vehicle. Before anything else we ask what went in, roughly how much, and if your motor has run, because those answers settle this work.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. A full flush matters far more with AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains will not clear out by itself. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Not run? Then count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that is the final step. Then our engineers start the car and you set off, whether from a parking space outside Hamworthy or a driveway around Sleight. Before leaving, our technicians check it is running properly with new diesel in. Because the job is done in full where the car is, a garage never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Sleight itself
Sleight is a small suburban area in Dorset, situated inland at an elevation of 54 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Sleight lies near the communities of Newtown, Mount Pleasant, and East End, and is approximately 22 miles from the city of Salisbury. Sleight has a population of around 663 residents, and is located about 96 miles west of London. Sleight is characterized by its quiet, residential atmosphere.
Sleight and Dorset: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the BH postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs around Sleight reach most of Dorset as well, Newtown, Mount Pleasant and East End included. Phone and ask instead of guessing when you're close to a county line, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
A mobile service suits Sleight, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring the car to us, because our engineers empty it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
Sleight: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. What changes the cost is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind St Hubert.
That's why every call from Sleight starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. With them, the range shrinks to a single fixed number.
You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
In Sleight and still beside the car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best step there is. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Sleight or wherever within Dorset, after you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.