AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Spout Green? Keep It Switched Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and the ignition as well. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens till the motor sucks it through. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly purged where the vehicle stands in Spout Green. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Spout Green: the first few minutes
Do:
- Take the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- Which product, and roughly how much volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers can know.
- Ring right where you are. Say a SK14 6 postcode or the closest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Don't:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the car: the motor stays off.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up Hall Drive.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Moving the car away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Spout Green forecourt you are on, the Shell included. On that drive, your car stays just where it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
It doesn't combine. After it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: being denser than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Warhill overnight and hasn't turned since. The liquid sits at the base of the tank, undrawn — though it will be first through once your motor starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of harm come from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it reaches till it's removed from your system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, waiting overnight around Spout Green leaves it worse. In that tank alone, waiting does nothing. And there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that need it most — the injection pump and each injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol from the BP. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is inside the tank it does no damage; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Mudd or the middle of Spout Green.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Anywhere in Greater Manchester your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Spout Green
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap — can appear the same. No one intends it; many layouts allow it. A bottle picked up when heading home and tipped in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the usual route.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. Hurrying, outside Mottram CofE Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. Close to Hall Close, a driver tips a container in on the drive in the evening. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills your car in dim light, parked in the car park outside Waggon and Horses.
Hired cars, new cars, company vehicles, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles see it most. Keep it switched off: that is the first step to an identical slip, wherever around Spout Green or the remainder of Greater Manchester you are.
Spout Green: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. The fuel filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Perhaps returning from Etherow Lodge Park, or midway across Spout Green, your engine may run rough, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or cut out. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M67, under a mile from Spout Green, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Spout Green to the car park by Statue of L.S. Lowry is a very different job from a run towards Manchester, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it is spotted early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Spout Green
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Spout Green: a side street close to Longdendale Recreation Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three replies decide the work, so first our technicians ask which fluid got in, about the amount, plus if your engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one after the tank is emptied, on the spot. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians arrive, if the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the last step. After that our technicians start the engine and you set off, whether from a parking bay by Broadbottom or a driveway in Spout Green. It's tested on new diesel to confirm it runs properly before our engineers go. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Spout Green, for a moment
Spout Green is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 226 metres. Spout Green lies approximately 9.6 miles east of Manchester, near the communities of Lower Roe Cross, Roe Cross, and Mottram in Longdendale. Spout Green is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its residential nature.
Spout Green and Greater Manchester: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs in Spout Green are passed to teams that serve the towns near it — Lower Roe Cross, Roe Cross plus Mottram in Longdendale — and much of Greater Manchester further out, across SK postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Asking beats guessing, and so phone.
No moving is needed. In Spout Green, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: your car is drained on the spot, be it on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Spout Green: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open drive is easier for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind St. Michael and All Angels Parish Church.
That's why each call from Spout Green starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it's run. When those are known, a range becomes a single fixed figure.
Before anyone heads out, you hear our quote on the phone. And you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. As our engineer is travelling, check your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
Spout Green: still beside your car?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Spout Green or anywhere around Greater Manchester.