St Andrews Well: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. In St Andrews Well, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, St Andrews Well: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents someone turning the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- So you can tell us which liquid it was and roughly what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring right where you are. Say a DT6 3 postcode or the nearest street sign, and nobody has to search for you.
Do not do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your vehicle: your engine remains off.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short distance along Sea Road North.
- Do not try to drain it yourself by the roadside.
Moving your car away from the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever St Andrews Well forecourt you are on, the Esso or any other. At your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed directly to the exhaust, cleaning what the engine lets out. Neither side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays separate instead of blending — quite unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the very spot the intake sucks from. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Bridport last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
From there it does two kinds of damage. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage overnight for a vehicle parked around St Andrews Well. Only inside that tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more significant than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Morrisons's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the main fault. Mixed through your diesel and sitting still, it is no threat for now; running the motor does the harm.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates again — and the following tankful will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of St Andrews Well or out in New Zealand, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Dorset the car is sitting.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in St Andrews Well?
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. A container picked up when heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical route.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. The refill gets rushed outside Bridport Primary School, after the dash flashed with a warning while the kids were taken in. Someone pours the container in outside their house, just off St Andrew's Road, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap refills the car in dim light, stopped in the car park by King Charles Tavern.
It occurs most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it switched off: that is the first step to an identical mistake, wherever around St Andrews Well or the rest of Dorset you happen to be.
St Andrews Well: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. With any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed through the filter and lines.
You may notice your engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Flaxhayes Playing Field or halfway across St Andrews Well. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep it off rather than testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M5, under 25 miles from St Andrews Well, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across St Andrews Well to the car park by Rise Market And Bakery is a very different job from a run towards Wells, under 50 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the engine has been run. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it is caught soon.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in St Andrews Well: what it takes
Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped in St Andrews Well: a side street near The Lyric Theatre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers shape the job, so before anything else our technicians ask which fluid was put in, roughly what quantity, plus if the engine has run.
Next, draining the tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. A full flush counts far more after AdBlue than with petrol, because what remains will not wash away by itself. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Not run? Then expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
The last step is to prime the system on new diesel. After that our engineers fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay outside Maiden Newton or a driveway around St Andrews Well. The test before our technicians go is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a garage. Afterwards, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About St Andrews Well and where it is
St Andrews Well is a coastal locality in Dorset, situated near the mouth of the River Brit, with Coneygar and Bradpole to the east and Pymore to the west. St Andrews Well has a population of around 1376 people, living mostly in detached houses, and is approximately 125 miles southwest of London. St Andrews Well benefits from its proximity to the sea, with the locality sitting at a low elevation of 12 metres above sea level. St Andrews Well is within commuting distance of Wells, the nearest city, which is 32 miles to the northwest.
AdBlue drains across St Andrews Well and Dorset
AdBlue call-outs in St Andrews Well go to teams that cover the towns around it — Coneygar, Bradpole as well as Pymore — and most of Dorset further out, across DT postcodes. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or somewhere tricky to pin down; phone and check.
St Andrews Well is a coastal area, 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 sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in St Andrews Well: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. Three things change the price: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight space behind The Chapel in the Garden.
What went in, what quantity, plus whether it ran: every St Andrews Well call begins with precisely those, ahead of a quote, not after. When those are known, a range becomes one firm number.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. As the van is travelling, check your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Alongside the car in St Andrews Well, still?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to leave it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran are all we need. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest across Dorset, St Andrews Well included.