Tiptree: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave the engine off and keep the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the system pulls it in. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully flushed where your car stands around Tiptree. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Tiptree, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do these:
- Take your keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Call right where you are. Quote a CO5 0 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Never:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Plenty of diesels run their pump the moment your ignition comes on, so keep it off.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it's wasted.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way up Maypole Road.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
The attendants working at any Tiptree filling station — the Shell among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate reservoir it is fed directly to the exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the same place the pickup draws from. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Messing last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Once it is drawn in, the harm comes in two forms. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning in Tiptree leaves it worse. Inside your tank only, waiting does nothing. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second form of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Asda's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that's the main problem. No harm comes while it sits unused, blended into the diesel — only once your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle sits in Inworth or the centre of Tiptree, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other error, and the flush counts for more. Why: it will not remain mixed, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Wherever around Essex the car has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Tiptree
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors rests right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. The top-up gets hurried outside Baynards Primary School, after your dash flashed with a warning while the kids were dropped off. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, right off Maldon Road, as the day ends. Else, in dim light by Bonnie Blue Oak, your car gets refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
The least familiar vehicles see it the most — rentals, brand-new cars, fleet cars, and the other vehicle in a family with both fuels. Same mistake, an identical first step — leave it off — wherever you are in Tiptree or the rest of Essex.
Tiptree: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and each injector, having passed through the fuel filter and lines.
Perhaps coming back from Windmill Green, or midway across Tiptree, the engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or cut out. Stop when safe. Switch off. Leave the car off instead of testing it again. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M11, under 25 miles from Tiptree, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Tiptree to the car park by Florence Park is a very different job from a run towards Colchester, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been running. Permanent damage is very rare when it is spotted soon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Tiptree
A road by Tiptree Library, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere your vehicle has come to rest around Tiptree, our technicians come to it. The job rests on three replies, which our technicians ask for before all else — which fluid went in, the quantity, and whether your engine has turned over.
Right there, that tank is then emptied, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea leave as one. What remains from AdBlue won't wash out by itself, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which counts much more with urea than for petrol. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when the engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to bleed your system on fresh diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, by Kelvedon or on a driveway around Tiptree. The test before our engineers head off is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. Afterwards, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Tiptree, briefly
Tiptree is a village in Essex, situated approximately 8 miles south of Colchester and 43 miles northeast of London, at an elevation of around 60 metres. Tiptree lies near several notable local landmarks, including Windmill Hill and Tiptree Heath, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Tiptree has a population of around 3051 residents, making it a small but established community in the region.
AdBlue drains around Tiptree and across Essex
Windmill Hill, Tiptree Heath and Tolleshunt Knights are among the places near Tiptree that the same vans serve, along with most of Essex beyond, throughout the CO postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess if you're by a county line, or somewhere tricky to explain.
No towing is needed. In Tiptree, a rural village, a mobile service fits: your vehicle is emptied where it stands, be it on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Tiptree?
There is no honest single price, because the jobs aren't the same. Three things move the price: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put 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 space behind Tiptree Parish Council Office.
Which fluid got in, how much, and whether the engine ran: every Tiptree call opens with precisely that, before a figure, not afterwards. Their answers shrink the range down to one figure.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As the van is travelling, check your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Tiptree: still beside your car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best move there is. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran are all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Essex, Tiptree too.