Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tilgate
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm starts once it is sucked through the pump — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully rinsed where the car stands around Tilgate. Before anything, phone us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Tilgate: the first few minutes
Do:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents anyone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting RH10 5, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your car: your engine stays off.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the moment your ignition goes on, and so keep it off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short distance down Ashdown Drive.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
Ask the attendants to help you move the vehicle off the pumps if you are at a forecourt around Tilgate, whether it's the BP or somewhere else. Parked on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the engine. From a dedicated reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what the engine emits. Nothing inside a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and no part of that was intended to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It drops, because it is heavier than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its supply from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Northgate last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of harm come 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 running on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting in Tilgate with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it's just in that tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel flowing past them, and so the water content harms them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger fault?
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Esso. Blended into the diesel and left still, it's no threat for now; using your motor is the harm.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. It does not burn, and so it cannot just be run through. Whether your vehicle sits in Broadfield or the heart of Tilgate, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't remain mixed, and so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
As with petrol, there's good news. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits just inside the tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has stopped in West Sussex.
Tilgate: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles rests right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it's not the forecourt: a driver buys a bottle heading home and pours it in outside the house.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside The Oaks Primary School & Nursery the refill is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Tilgate Way. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills the vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park by The Grasshopper.
The least known vehicles see it most — hire cars, brand-new ones, fleet cars, and the other car in a family with both fuel types. Wherever you're in Tilgate or the rest of West Sussex, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Tilgate?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been pulled through your filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors.
Expect rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Loppets Road Playing Fields, perhaps, or part way across Tilgate. No restarting to check: stop once safe, then turn it off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Tilgate lies under a mile from the M23; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That's why crossing Tilgate to park beside Holy Trinity and a drive of under 25 miles towards Brighton and Hove are such separate jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
There's more to rinse out once your engine has been started, and we do all of it where the car has ended up. Lasting damage is very uncommon when it is caught soon.
Tilgate: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A road by St Bernadette's, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the car has come to rest in Tilgate, our technicians come to it. The job rests on three answers, which our technicians get first — what went in, the amount, and whether the motor has turned over.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out at once. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through since residue will not wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Last, the system is primed with fresh diesel. You set off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway in Tilgate or in a space at Crawley. Before we leave, we confirm it's running properly with new diesel in. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Tilgate, for a moment
Tilgate is a suburban area in West Sussex, situated near lakes and surrounded by other residential neighbourhoods such as Furnace Green and Southgate. Tilgate sits at an elevation of 78 metres, within the larger urban area of Crawley, and is located approximately 19 miles from Brighton and Hove. Tilgate is characterized by its terraced housing and lakeside setting, which distinguishes it from other areas in the region. Tilgate is also relatively close to London, at a distance of around 28 miles.
AdBlue drains across West Sussex, Tilgate included
AdBlue call-outs in Tilgate go to vans that cover the places near it — Furnace Green, Southgate plus Crawley — and much of West Sussex beyond, throughout RH postcodes. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No moving is needed. In Tilgate, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is drained on the spot, whether on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Tilgate: the cost of fixing it
There is no honest single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open drive is simpler for a van to get to safely than a tight space behind Tilgate Community Center.
That's why each call from Tilgate starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. Once those are answered, a range becomes a single firm number.
You get that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
In Tilgate and still beside your car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Tilgate or wherever within West Sussex, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.