Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in The Square
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and your ignition as well. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the system pulls it in. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in The Square. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, The Square: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can power anything on.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Which product, and about what quantity? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting SN11 0, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your vehicle: the motor remains off.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short distance down The Square.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
Ask the attendants to help you move your vehicle away from the pumps if you're on a forecourt around The Square, whether it's the Esso or somewhere else. On the drive, the vehicle stays just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. From a separate 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 built to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Ratford last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It does two kinds of damage from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it hits for as long as it remains there. A car left standing around The Square with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Then there is the water: it brings no protection to the components that need it most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and this issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's in the tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, and so it can't simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Mile Elm or the middle of The Square.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest part on a fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in there — anywhere across Wiltshire your car has stopped.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in The Square
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars sits right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. The refill is rushed outside Marden Vale CofE Academy, after the dash flashed with a warning while the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Curzon Street. Or your car is topped up in the car park at The Wheatsheaf, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
The least known vehicles get it most — rentals, new cars, fleet cars, and the spare motor in a home with one of each fuels. Same slip, an identical first step — keep it switched off — anywhere you happen to be around The Square or the rest of Wiltshire.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in The Square, and your engine started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, having passed via the filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Beach Terrace, say, or part way across The Square. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
The Square sits under 10 miles from the M4; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and pull up somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Distance counts: each mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so driving towards Bath, under 25 miles away, makes a much bigger job than crossing The Square to the car park by Two Little Piggies. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once your engine has run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Long-term damage is very uncommon when it is caught early.
The Square: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The car stays where it is, whether that's a street beside Zion Baptist Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in The Square, and our van comes to it. The job depends on three replies, which we ask for first — what went in, the quantity, and if the engine has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one after your tank is emptied, on the spot. What remains from AdBlue will not wash out by itself, and so the fuel system gets a full flush, which counts far more with urea than for petrol. A test of the car comes at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets flushed or, where needed, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers turn up, provided the engine hasn't run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the final step. You set off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around The Square or in a space outside Chippenham. We make sure it runs correctly on fresh diesel before we go. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a garage. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About The Square itself
The Square is a locality in Wiltshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 77 metres, near the town of Calne and the city of Bath. The Square is characterized by its terraced housing and is located close to Calne Marsh and Quemerford. The Square is part of a larger area that has been settled for centuries, with its proximity to Bath and the surrounding countryside making it a desirable place to live.
The Square and Wiltshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Our teams that answer AdBlue calls around The Square also cover the spots about it, Calne, Calne Marsh and Quemerford among them, and most of Wiltshire beyond, across the SN postcode area. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Anywhere your car sits — a drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a filling station — our technicians drain it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits The Square, a small village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in The Square?
Each job is different, and so not one single price would be honest. The price moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Calne Library.
For that in mind, every enquiry from The Square begins with the identical trio — what went in, what quantity, if it ran — before a figure. Once they are answered, a range turns into one fixed number.
Before a van heads out, you hear the price by phone. And payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still alongside the car around The Square?
Not touching the car is, right now, the most useful move open to you. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in The Square or wherever in Wiltshire.