AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in South Lynn? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it is sucked through your pump — it will not ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully cleaned where your car stands in South Lynn. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around South Lynn: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Pull your keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, so don't throw it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting PE30 5, or the name of the nearest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your car: your motor remains off.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant your ignition goes on, so leave the vehicle off.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, and so it's wasted.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Proctors Close.
- Draining your tank on your own beside the road is not worth trying.
At a forecourt around South Lynn, whether it is the Shell or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. At your own driveway, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump isn't made to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits beneath the diesel, which is how a car filled in Highgate yesterday and never switched on stays the simple case, provided no one touches the key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny channels and clog filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it is cleared out. Overnight, a vehicle parked around South Lynn with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it is only in your tank, nothing changes. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
An issue of thinned fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol at the Tesco. No damage is done as long as it stays put, blended into the diesel — only when the engine runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in West Lynn or the middle of South Lynn.
As with petrol, there's good news. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere in Norfolk your car sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in South Lynn
Plenty of cars put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, now and then under a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. Nobody intends it. It mostly happens outside the house, from a container bought on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside St Michael's Church of England Academy the refill is rushed. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway close to Wisbech Road. Or someone new to that flap refills your car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside Freebridge Farm.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new car, a company motor, or the spare vehicle of a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people know least. Same slip, same first step — leave it switched off — anywhere you are around South Lynn or the rest of Norfolk.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around South Lynn?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. It's been pulled through the filter and the lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Sandpiper Way Park, say, or midway across South Lynn. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the A1(M), under 50 miles from South Lynn, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Hopping across South Lynn to the car park by South Lynn Community Centre is one thing; driving for Ely, under 25 miles away, is something else, since each mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where your car has ended up, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Permanent damage is very unusual if it is noticed soon.
South Lynn: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A street beside Kings Lynn Baptist Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the car has stopped around South Lynn, our technicians come to it. Three answers shape the work, so before anything else we ask which fluid was put in, about what quantity, and whether the motor has turned over.
Next, draining your tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. What remains from AdBlue will not flush away unaided, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which counts much more with urea than with petrol. A test of your vehicle follows last, once clean diesel goes in and your filter gets flushed or, where needed, swapped. Engine not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Last, the system is primed with clean diesel. Whether it's a parking space at Kings Lynn or a drive around South Lynn, that is where our technicians start the car and you head off. It is tested on fresh diesel to make sure it runs properly before we go. Because the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About South Lynn and where it is
South Lynn is a suburban area located on the coast of Norfolk, with a low elevation of around 4 metres above sea level. South Lynn sits near the town of Kings Lynn and other nearby places such as Hardwick and St James End, forming part of the larger urban landscape. South Lynn has a population of approximately 3324 people, predominantly living in terraced housing. South Lynn is situated near the city of Ely, which is around 24 miles away, and is also within commuting distance to London, being around 88 miles from the capital.
South Lynn and Norfolk: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the PE postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs in South Lynn serve much of Norfolk as well, Kings Lynn, Hardwick and St James End among them. Near a border, or anywhere tricky to explain? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
South Lynn is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in South Lynn: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, so not one fixed quote would be honest. Three things shift the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight space behind Whale.
Ahead of a quote, not afterwards, each enquiry from South Lynn opens with three checks: the liquid, the amount, and if it ran. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
You hear that price on the phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
South Lynn: still next to your car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the best thing you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it ran is everything our engineers need. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout Norfolk, South Lynn included.