Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tinhay
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your motor off and keep the ignition off. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Being water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; trouble only starts once your pump begins pulling it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully flushed where your car stands around Tinhay. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Tinhay: the first few minutes
Do:
- Remove the keys, and that prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the quantity, and so do not bin it away.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting PL16 0, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Never:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to reposition the vehicle.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start the pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along The Old Rice Mill.
- Beside the road, do not attempt draining it on your own.
At a forecourt around Tinhay, whether it is the Tesco or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the pump. At home, the car remains just as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the engine emits. No part in a fuel pump is made for this fluid — and none of that was intended to travel through one.
It does not combine. Once it is tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. 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 Liftondown last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. It eats at certain metals used in fuel components, attacking any part it touches till it is cleared completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny passages. By daybreak, a car sitting in Tinhay with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; where it is just inside that tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water part damages them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the BP, and this issue is diluted fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's in that tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates again — and the next tankful won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Tinhay or out in Gatherley, does more harm than almost any other slip.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Wherever around Devon your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue still in the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Tinhay?
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, now and then under a single flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. Usually it is not the filling station: someone buys a bottle driving home and tips it in at home.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Lifton Community Academy. A driver pours the container in outside their house, just off Old Tinhay, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light by the pub in the village, your vehicle gets topped up by someone using that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a brand-new car, a company vehicle, or the other car in a family with both fuel types — the cars people know least. Leave it switched off: that's the first step to an identical mistake, anywhere around Tinhay or the remainder of Devon you happen to be.
Tinhay: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through your filter, along the lines, and — given any running time — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it has gone.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from Moonhouse Plantation, say, or part way across Tinhay. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Keep it off instead of testing it again. Every start pulls more of it through.
On the M5, under 50 miles from Tinhay, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not carrying on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into your system. That's why crossing Tinhay to park beside St Mary the Virgin and a drive of under 25 miles towards Plymouth are such distinct jobs. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once the engine has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. If it is caught early, long-term damage is very rare.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Tinhay
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that is a road beside Lifton Community Centre, a drive, a layby or a filling station in Tinhay, and our van comes to it. Three replies decide the job, so before anything else our engineers ask what went in, roughly what quantity, and whether your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one after that tank is drained, on the spot. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians arrive, if the motor has not run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming your system with fresh diesel comes at the end. At that point our technicians fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space outside Gunnislake or a drive in Tinhay. The test before our technicians leave is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Tinhay itself
Tinhay is a small village in Devon, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 60 metres. Tinhay lies near the villages of Lifton and Sprytown, and is close to the hamlet of Portgate. Tinhay has a population of approximately 502 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Tinhay is located near the city of Plymouth, which is 19.7 miles away.
Tinhay and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs in Tinhay go to vans that cover the places around it — Lifton, Sprytown plus Portgate — and most of Devon beyond, throughout PL postcodes. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No towing is needed. In Tinhay, a village, a van that comes to you fits: your car is emptied on the spot, be it on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Tinhay: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, so no fixed price would be honest. What shifts the price is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and then where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Lifton Methodist Church.
That is why every call from Tinhay starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. With those replies, a range narrows to one firm figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told the price on the phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Next to the car around Tinhay, right now?
Not touching the car is, then, the best thing open to you. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Tinhay or anywhere in Devon.