AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stock? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and the ignition as well. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system pulls it in. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly cleaned where your car sits around Stock. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Stock: the first few minutes
Do these:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take your keys away.
- Near moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting CM4 9, or just the name of a street close by, so call from the spot.
Never:
- Moving the car just a short way is no reason to start your motor.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it is wasted.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch down Mill Road.
- Beside the road, do not try draining it yourself.
The attendants on duty at any Stock forecourt — the Shell among them — will usually lend a hand rolling it clear if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it stays just as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the engine. From a dedicated tank it goes directly to the exhaust, treating what your engine emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
It doesn't combine. Once it is poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the very place the intake draws from. A car topped up on a driveway in Buttsbury overnight and left unstarted counts as the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though once the motor turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny passages; and, since it attacks some metals, every part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains in there. Overnight, a vehicle parked around Stock with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's only in that tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and this problem is diluted fuel. No harm is done while it stays unused, blended into the diesel — only once your motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates back out — and the next fill won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Stock or out in Queens Park, costs more than almost any other slip.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits only in that tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest around Essex.
Stock: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not on purpose. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Stock Church of England Primary School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Back Lane. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park outside The Harvard Inn.
It comes up the most in a rental, a new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the other motor in a family with both fuels — the vehicles people know the least. Wherever in Essex, Stock included, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first step: keep it off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Stock?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. With any running time, it travels to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed through the fuel filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each may show up, perhaps part way across Stock or coming back from Hankin's Wood. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Exit the M25, under 10 miles from Stock, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, not driving on.
Mileage matters: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, so driving towards Chelmsford, under 10 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Stock to the car park by Stock Library. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the engine has been running. Caught quickly, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Stock?
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Stock: a side street near Christ Church The Free Church in Stock, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. What was put in, roughly the quantity, and if the motor has been run: we check first, since those shape the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out together after that tank is emptied, on the spot. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through because residue will not flush out unaided. A test of the vehicle follows last, after fresh diesel is added and the fuel filter is flushed or, where needed, swapped. If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on clean diesel. Whether it is a parking bay at Ingatestone or a driveway around Stock, that is where we start the car and you set off. Before leaving, our technicians check it's running properly with fresh diesel in. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Stock and where it is
Stock is a small village in Essex, situated inland at an elevation of around 96 metres, approximately 5 miles from Chelmsford and 27 miles from London. Stock has a population of around 871 people, with predominantly detached housing. Stock is close to nearby places such as Greenwoods, Tye Green, and Margaretting Tye, and is part of the wider commuter belt around Chelmsford.
AdBlue drains around Stock and across Essex
AdBlue call-outs in Stock go to vans that cover the places around it — Greenwoods, Tye Green plus Margaretting Tye — and most of Essex beyond, throughout CM postcodes. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
A mobile service suits Stock, a rural village: you have no need to bring the vehicle to us, because our technicians drain it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Stock: the cost of fixing it
Not one flat figure could be honest, because every job differs. What changes the price is, firstly, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Stock War Memorial.
Ahead of a quote, never afterwards, each enquiry from Stock begins with three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and if the engine ran. When those are answered, a range becomes a single firm figure.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Check your insurance whilst we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Beside your car in Stock, still?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Stock or anywhere in Essex.