AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Sudden? Keep It Switched Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. The harm begins once it's pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't blend with diesel. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully cleaned where your car sits around Sudden. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Sudden
To do:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, pull the keys out.
- If you are anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about how much volume? Save the bottle or your receipt, and we will see.
- Tell us a postcode starting OL11 4, or whatever street is closest, and our van finds you directly — so ring wherever you are.
Do not:
- Moving the vehicle even a few yards is no reason to start your motor.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way along Roch Valley Way.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it on your own.
At a forecourt around Sudden, whether it's the Tesco or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed straight to your exhaust, treating what your motor lets out. Nothing inside an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of that was meant to travel that way.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like fuel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in Mitchell Hey last night and has not been started since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of your tank, untouched — though it would be first through if the engine starts, before any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of damage. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in narrow channels and block filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going till it is flushed out. Pipes holding AdBlue mean harm overnight for a vehicle sitting around Sudden. Only in your tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing past them, and so the water part harms them by itself.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
A problem of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the BP. Damage just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and sitting inside the tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Castleton or the middle of Sudden.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Greater Manchester the car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Sudden
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap — may appear the same. No one means it; many designs allow it. A bottle picked up while heading home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the typical story.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. The top-up gets hurried outside Brimrod Community Primary School, after the dash lit up with a warning as the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Edinburgh Way. Else, in dim light outside Waggon and Horses, your vehicle gets topped up by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the other car of a home with both fuels — the vehicles drivers use the least. Wherever you're around Sudden or the rest of Greater Manchester, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Sudden: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been sucked through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Watch for rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on your dash, or a stall — returning from Mandale Park, say, or midway across Sudden. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Sudden lies under a mile from the A627(M); if you were on it, exit by the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than driving on.
Mileage counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving for Manchester, under 10 miles away, makes a much larger job than hopping across Sudden to the car park by Sudden Community Centre. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the motor has been started. Noticed quickly, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Sudden: what it takes
The car stays where it is, whether that's a street beside St Aidan, a drive, a layby or a filling station in Sudden, and the van travels to it. What was put in, about how much, and whether the motor has turned over: we ask first, because those shape the job.
Next, emptying your tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. What remains from AdBlue won't wash away by itself, and so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters much more with urea than with petrol. Fresh diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we get there, provided your motor hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes last. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, by Castleton or on a driveway around Sudden. Before we go, we check it is running properly with new diesel in. As the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Sudden and where it is
Sudden is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated near the River Roch and close to the towns of Rochdale and Heywood. Sudden sits at an elevation of 127 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Sudden is located near several other suburban areas, including Marland, Stoneyfield, and Kirkholt, and is around 9 miles from Manchester city centre.
AdBlue drains across Sudden and Greater Manchester
Marland, Stoneyfield and Kirkholt are among the towns near Sudden that the same vans serve, along with most of Greater Manchester beyond, over the OL postcode area. Near a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
A van that comes to you fits Sudden, a residential suburb: you have no need to bring your vehicle to us, since our technicians drain it there, on a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Sudden: the cost of fixing it
Each job is different, and so not one single price would be honest. Three things move the price: whether your engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight spot behind Westfield Polish Catholic Centre.
Before any quote, not afterwards, each call from Sudden opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and if the engine ran. With those replies, a range shrinks to a single fixed figure.
The quote is quoted during the call, before anyone leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy while we're on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Sudden and still alongside the vehicle?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Sudden or anywhere in Greater Manchester, once you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.