Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Studlands Park
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your motor off then keep your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm starts until the engine sucks it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Studlands Park, is normally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the motor has been run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Studlands Park: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Take your keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, and so don't bin it out.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting CB8 7, or simply the name of a street nearby, so call from the spot.
Do not:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to start your engine.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment your ignition comes on, and so leave the car off.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Parkers Walk.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
On a forecourt in Studlands Park, whether it is the Tesco or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. If you're on your own drive, leave it just where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate tank it is fed straight to the exhaust, cleaning what the motor lets out. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The intake sucks fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Newmarket last night and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of that tank, undrawn — though it will be first through once the motor starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it is cleared out. Overnight, a car parked around Studlands Park with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's just inside the tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers none of that, which is a separate kind of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the BP, and the issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's inside the tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits again — and the following fill will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Studlands Park or out in Old Pembroke Farm, does more harm than almost any other error.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Wherever in Suffolk your vehicle has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Studlands Park: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually occurs outside the house, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Laureate Community Academy. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Hyperion Way. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up your car after dark, stopped in the car park by White Horse.
It occurs most in the motors drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Anywhere around Suffolk, Studlands Park included, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first response: leave it switched off.
Studlands Park: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Through the fuel filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it has gone.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from the green space at the edge of the village or halfway across Studlands Park. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M11, under 15 miles from Studlands Park, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That's why a hop across Studlands Park to park beside Studlands Park Sports and Social Club and a drive of under 15 miles towards Ely are very different jobs. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There's more to rinse out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage when it's spotted soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Studlands Park?
Wherever it has stopped around Studlands Park — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a road beside Exning Village Sign — our van travels to your vehicle. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether your motor has been run, because those answers determine this work.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. The fuel system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then your vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers arrive, if the engine hasn't run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to bleed the fuel system on fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking bay at Newmarket or a driveway in Studlands Park, that is where our technicians fire it up and you head off. The test before we go is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never has to go to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Studlands Park, for a moment
Studlands Park is a suburban area in Suffolk, situated inland at an elevation of 29 metres, and is located near the cities of Ely and Newmarket. Studlands Park has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Studlands Park is close to several nearby villages, including Exning, Snailwell, and Landwade, and is about 56.8 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Studlands Park and across Suffolk
Over the CB postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue jobs around Studlands Park serve much of Suffolk too, Exning, Snailwell and Landwade included. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No towing is needed. In Studlands Park, a residential suburb, a mobile service works: the vehicle is drained on the spot, be it in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Studlands Park: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of your car, since an open driveway is simpler for our van to get to safely than a tight space behind St Martin (Exning and Landwade Parish Church).
That is why each call from Studlands Park starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it has run. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Studlands Park: still next to the vehicle?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best step there is. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Studlands Park or wherever in Suffolk.