AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Southwater Street? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the engine. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm starts till your engine sucks it through. Caught before your engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Southwater Street. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Southwater Street
To do:
- So nobody can turn the ignition on, pull your keys out.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting RH13 9, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Shifting your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel will not thin it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short way down Warren Drive.
- Beside the road, do not try draining it yourself.
Ask the attendants to help you roll your vehicle away from the pumps if you're on a forecourt around Southwater Street, whether it's the Texaco or somewhere else. On that drive, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Neither side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump cannot take urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, since it is heavier than diesel, and settles down where the pickup draws its supply from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it sits underneath your diesel, which is how a car topped up in Copsale yesterday and not started stays the straightforward case, provided nobody turns the key.
It does two kinds of damage from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and narrow passages; meanwhile, since it eats at some metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it stays inside. A car left standing around Southwater Street with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger issue?
A fault of thin fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol from the Shell. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside the tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Deposits and corrosion remain after the next tankful, and AdBlue splits again from the diesel, so watering it won't help. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly any other slip — in Marylands Park or the centre of Southwater Street alike.
As with petrol, there is good news. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across West Sussex the vehicle is sitting.
Southwater Street: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under a single flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. A container bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Castlewood Primary School. In the evening, a container goes in on a drive close to Southwater Street. Another pattern: dim light, a pub car park by Hen and Chicken, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a new motor, a fleet car, or the spare vehicle in a home with both fuel types — the cars people know the least. Keep it off: that's the first step to an identical slip, wherever in Southwater Street or the remainder of West Sussex you are.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Southwater Street?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Through your filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is how far it travels.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each might show up, perhaps part way across Southwater Street or coming back from Southwater Playing Fields. No restarting to check: pull over once it is safe, then switch it off. Every start pulls more of that through.
Southwater Street sits under 10 miles from the M23; if you were on it, leave at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into the system. That's why crossing Southwater Street to park beside Southwater Leisure Centre & Gym and a drive of under 25 miles for Brighton and Hove are very different jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the car has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Caught early, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
Southwater Street: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A road beside Southwater Library, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever the vehicle has stopped in Southwater Street, we travel to it. The work rests on three answers, and our engineers ask for first — what got in, the amount, and if your engine has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one after your tank is emptied, right there. A full flush matters much more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't wash away on its own. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming your system with new diesel comes at the end. After that our engineers start the car and you set off, whether from a parking bay outside Christs Hospital or a drive in Southwater Street. The test before our technicians go is that it runs correctly on new diesel. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Southwater Street itself
Southwater Street is a suburban area in West Sussex, situated approximately 17 miles from Brighton and Hove and 34 miles from London. Southwater Street sits in a relatively low-lying area at an elevation of around 63 metres, near the village of Southwater and other nearby places like Two Mile Ash and Tower Hill. Southwater Street is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the area's residential nature.
AdBlue drains across Southwater Street and West Sussex
Southwater, Two Mile Ash and Tower Hill are among the places near Southwater Street that the same teams reach, together with most of West Sussex beyond, over the RH postcode area. Phone and ask instead of guessing if you're by a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
A mobile service fits Southwater Street, a residential suburb: there's no need to take your car to us, since our engineers drain it there, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Southwater Street?
No flat figure could be honest, because every job differs. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Southwater Iguanodon.
Ahead of a figure, never after, each enquiry from Southwater Street opens with three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. With them, the range narrows to one fixed number.
Before anyone sets off, you hear the price by phone. Then you pay on the day, 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 gets there.
Still alongside the vehicle around Southwater Street?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the best move open to you. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Southwater Street or anywhere around West Sussex.