AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in St Mawes? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your motor off and keep your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the system pulls it in. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly rinsed where your car stands in St Mawes. First, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around St Mawes: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, which stops someone turning the power on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about what volume? Save the bottle or the receipt, and we will see.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting TR2 5, or simply the name of a street close by, and so call from the spot.
Things not to do:
- Moving the car even a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it's wasted.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Grove Hill.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
Moving the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever St Mawes forecourt you are on, the Esso included. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
It doesn't combine. After it is poured into the tank, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. It sinks, because it's denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its fuel from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Trethewell last night and has not been started since. The liquid waits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — but it will be first through once the motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. It attacks certain metals found in fuel components, attacking any part it touches until it is cleared from the system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and settle in narrow channels. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning in St Mawes leaves things worse. In that tank alone, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more significant than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on another forecourt nearby's forecourt leaves the fuel thin — that is the whole problem. Blended through your diesel and sitting unused, it's harmless at that stage; using the motor does the harm.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. It does not burn, and so it can't simply be run through. Whether the vehicle is in St Just in Roseland or the heart of St Mawes, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not stay blended, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Cornwall the vehicle is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around St Mawes?
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, now and then behind one flap — can appear the same. Nobody means it; plenty of designs allow it. Mostly it is never the forecourt: a driver buys a container heading home and tips it in outside the house.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside St Mawes Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, a parent tops up the vehicle. Near Commercial Road, someone tips a container in on the drive after work. Another pattern: darkness, the car park outside The Victory Inn, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuels — the cars people know least. Wherever you are around St Mawes or the rest of Cornwall, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
St Mawes: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. The filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and some running time carries it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a stall — returning from Lamorran Gardens, say, or midway across St Mawes. When safe, pull over and switch everything off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M5, over 50 miles from St Mawes, at the next junction and stop somewhere safe, not driving on.
Hopping across St Mawes to the car park by Our Lady Star Of The Sea and St. Anthony is one matter; heading towards Truro, under 10 miles away, is another, since every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has ended up, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it's noticed quickly.
St Mawes: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A road beside Memorial Hall, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere the car has stopped in St Mawes, our engineers travel to it. Three replies decide the job, so before anything else we ask what was put in, about what quantity, plus whether the engine has turned over.
Then the tank is emptied where the car waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is cleaned thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after your filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. About half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when your motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking bay outside Falmouth Docks or a drive around St Mawes, that is where our engineers fire it up and you drive off. Before leaving, our engineers make sure it's running smoothly with fresh diesel in. No garage is needed at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About St Mawes itself
St Mawes is a small coastal village in Cornwall, situated on the Roseland Peninsula, with a population of around 643 people. St Mawes has a mix of old and new housing, but detached homes are the predominant type, reflecting the village's attractive setting. St Mawes sits at an elevation of 18 metres, looking out over the sea, and is located near other small places like St Anthony, Bohortha, and Percuil. St Mawes is about 7 miles from the city of Truro, the administrative centre of Cornwall.
St Mawes and Cornwall: AdBlue drains across the area
St Anthony, Bohortha and Percuil are among the towns near St Mawes that the same vans serve, together with much of Cornwall beyond, throughout the TR postcode area. Close to a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Asking beats guessing, so ring.
Wherever your car sits — your drive at home, a side street, a car park, a forecourt — our engineers empty it there, with no need to bring it to us; which suits St Mawes, a coastal village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around St Mawes?
There's no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves 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 technician to get to safely than a tight spot behind Saint Mawes.
That is why every call from St Mawes starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it has run. Given them, a range shrinks to a single fixed figure.
The price is quoted during the call, before a van sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
St Mawes: still next to the car?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether the engine ran are all our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout Cornwall, St Mawes too.