Tattershall: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you begin if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm starts till your engine sucks it round. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Tattershall. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
Tattershall, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Things to do:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly what quantity, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Give us a postcode starting LN4 4, or whatever street lies nearest, and our van reaches you directly — so call wherever you stand.
Don't:
- Shifting the car even a few yards is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch along Market Place.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
Rolling the car off the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Tattershall forecourt you're on, the Gulf included. At home, the car remains exactly where it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into the exhaust, where 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.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A motor topped up on a drive in Dogdyke yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but once your motor turns, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filter elements and narrow passages; and, since it eats at certain metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it stays inside. A motor left sitting around Tattershall with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, so the water content harms them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger fault?
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. Mixed into your diesel and sitting still, it is no threat for now; using your motor is the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the next fill will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of Tattershall or out in Hawthorn Hill, does more harm than nearly any other error.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue remains in there — wherever across Lincolnshire your car sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Tattershall
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap — can look the same. No one means it; many layouts invite it. It usually takes place outside the house, from a container bought en route home, not at the filling station.
Usually, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Tattershall Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School the refill is hurried. Close to A153, a driver tips a container in on that drive after work. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up your car in dim light, parked in the car park outside The Fortescue Arms.
The least known cars get it the most — hire cars, new ones, company ones, and the spare car of a family with both fuels. Wherever you're in Tattershall or the remainder of Lincolnshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Tattershall?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. Your filter and pipework have had it pulled along, and some running takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Lumpy running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may show up, perhaps midway across Tattershall or returning from Allan Barker Playing Fields. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
On the M180, under 50 miles from Tattershall, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Tattershall to the car park by Tattersall Village Sign is a very different job from a run towards Lincoln, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the flushing where the car has ended up, and once your engine has run there is more of it. When it is noticed soon, lasting damage is very rare.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Tattershall: what it takes
Anywhere it has stopped around Tattershall — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a road beside Tattersall College — our van travels to the vehicle. Three answers decide the job, so first we ask which fluid went in, roughly what quantity, and if your engine has run.
Next, draining that tank on the spot removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned right through because what remains won't flush away by itself. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Bleeding your system with new diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking bay outside Metheringham or a drive in Tattershall, that is where our technicians start the engine and you head off. Our engineers check it runs properly on fresh diesel before we leave. As the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Tattershall itself
Tattershall is a village in Lincolnshire, situated on the banks of the River Witham at a low elevation of around 8 metres. Tattershall lies near the market town of Coningsby and the village of Tattershall Thorpe, with the city of Lincoln approximately 17 miles to the west. Tattershall has a population of around 1034 people, predominantly living in detached houses, and is located near Tattershall Bridge. Tattershall is about 110 miles north of London, in the East Midlands region.
AdBlue drains in Tattershall and across Lincolnshire
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls in Tattershall also cover the locations about it, Coningsby, Tattershall Thorpe and Tattershall Bridge among them, and most of Lincolnshire beyond, across the LN postcode area. Close to a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats assuming, and so phone.
No towing is needed. In Tattershall, a village, a mobile service works: your car is emptied on the spot, whether on a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Tattershall
There is no fair single price, because the jobs aren't the same. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Tattershall Village Hall.
That is why each call from Tattershall starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Their replies narrow the range right down to a single number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Check your policy while we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Tattershall: still beside the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Tattershall or wherever within Lincolnshire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if it ran.