AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Stogursey? Keep It Switched Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The trouble begins once it is sucked through the lines — it won't ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits in Stogursey. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Stogursey: the first few minutes
Do:
- Pull the keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Give us a postcode starting TA5 1, or whatever street is nearest, and our van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you are.
Don't:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the car: your motor stays off.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets your pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Castle Street.
- Emptying the tank on your own beside the road is not one to try.
The attendants working at any Stogursey filling station — the Pace included — will usually lend a hand rolling it clear if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the car precisely where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the same place the intake sucks from. A motor filled on a driveway in Knighton overnight and left unstarted counts as the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once the engine turns, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What is left when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting till morning around Stogursey leaves it worse. Inside your tank alone, waiting does nothing. And there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more serious than petrol
An issue of thinned fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside that tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates back out — and the next fill won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the heart of Stogursey or out in Durborough, costs more than nearly any other mistake.
As with petrol, there is good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only inside your tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere your car has stopped across Somerset.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Stogursey
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it's never the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle heading home and tips it in outside the house.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Stogursey Church of England Primary School. Close to Church Street, someone pours a container in on that drive in the evening. Or someone new to that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park by Greyhound Inn.
It happens most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that's the first response to an identical mistake, wherever in Stogursey or the remainder of Somerset you happen to be.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Stogursey?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Your filter and lines have had it sucked through, and some running takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
You may notice your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Monk Wood or halfway across Stogursey. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the vehicle off rather than testing it again. Every start pulls more of it through.
Stogursey sits under 10 miles from the M5; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and stop safely instead of carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Stogursey to the car park by Priory Church Of St Andrew is a very different job from a run towards Cardiff, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been running. Spotted early, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
Stogursey: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that's a road beside Stogursey Castle, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt around Stogursey, and the van travels to it. Before anything else we ask what was put in, about how much, and whether the engine has run, since those answers decide this work.
Right there, your tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. A full flush matters much more after AdBlue than with petrol, since residue won't wash out on its own. After that, the filter: flushed, or changed when it must be. Then clean diesel, then a check of the car. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where the engine has not run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
The final step is to bleed the system on clean diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where the car is parked, by Bridgwater or on a driveway around Stogursey. Before we leave, we check it is running smoothly with new diesel in. As the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Stogursey and where it is
Stogursey is a small coastal village in Somerset, situated near the mouth of the Severn Estuary at an elevation of around 37 metres. Stogursey lies close to the villages of Shurton and Burton, and is within commuting distance of Cardiff. Stogursey has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the village.
AdBlue drains around Stogursey and across Somerset
AdBlue call-outs around Stogursey go to teams that serve the towns near it — Shurton, Burton as well as Cockwood — and much of Somerset beyond, across TA postcodes. Assuming doesn't help close to a county line or anywhere tricky to describe; ring and ask.
Anywhere the vehicle stands — a driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a filling station — our engineers empty it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; that suits Stogursey, a coastal village, well.
Stogursey: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Each job is different, and so not one single price is fair. What changes the cost is, firstly, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind St Martin's Church.
That's why each call from Stogursey starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it's run. With them, a range shrinks to a single fixed number.
Our price is quoted on the call, before anyone leaves; settling up comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Check your policy while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Stogursey and still alongside the car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if it ran is all our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Somerset, Stogursey too.