AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tongham? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep the motor off and leave your ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble begins once it's pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. In Tongham, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps right now, Tongham: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Pocket the keys, which prevents anyone turning the power on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting GU10 1, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Many diesels run their pump the moment your ignition goes on, so leave it off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel will not weaken it.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Poyle Road.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it yourself.
At a forecourt around Tongham, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. At home, the car stays exactly where it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It sinks, since it's heavier than diesel, and pools down where the intake takes its supply from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Ash Green overnight and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue waits at the base of your tank, undrawn — but it will be the first thing through if your engine starts, before any diesel at all.
Two kinds of damage come from there. It eats at some metals found in fuel systems, attacking whatever it reaches until it's removed completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage by morning for a vehicle sitting in Tongham. Just in that tank, it stays the same. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger problem?
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol from the BP. Mixed through the diesel and sitting still, it is no threat for now; running the motor does the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, because it does not burn. Whether your vehicle sits in Runfold or the centre of Tongham, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush matters for more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
As with petrol, there's good news. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Surrey your car is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Tongham?
Many motors place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, occasionally behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. Nobody intends it. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside St Paul's CofE Primary School & Nursery. Someone pours the bottle in at home, just off Grange Road, as the day ends. Else, in dim light by White Hart, the car gets refilled by a driver using that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever around Surrey, Tongham as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Tongham?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Via the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that is how far it travels.
You may notice the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Tongham Wood or halfway across Tongham. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M3, under 10 miles from Tongham, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
A quick hop across Tongham to the car park by St Paul's Tongham is one matter; heading for Chichester, under 50 miles away, is something else, since every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Let us know about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the engine has been running. When it is caught quickly, lasting damage is very uncommon.
Tongham: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The car remains where it is, whether that's a road near The Old School, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt in Tongham, and the van travels to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if the engine has run, since those answers decide the work.
Then that tank is cleared where the car sits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through because what remains will not wash away by itself. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes at the end. After that our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space outside Ash or a driveway in Tongham. Our engineers confirm it runs properly on clean diesel before we go. We do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Tongham, briefly
Tongham is a village in Surrey, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 76 metres, with a mix of terraced housing and other residential properties. Tongham lies near the villages of Sandy Cross, Ash, and Seale, and is approximately 27.5 miles from Chichester. Tongham is also within commuting distance of London, being around 32.2 miles from the city. Tongham has a population of around 2015 people, making it a small but distinct community in the South East region.
AdBlue drains in Tongham and across Surrey
Our teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Tongham also cover the spots round it, Sandy Cross, Ash and Seale among them, and most of Surrey beyond, across the GU postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess when you are by a county line, or somewhere tricky to pin down.
Tongham is a village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Tongham: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single price, because the jobs aren't the same. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Tongham Village Hall.
That's why every call from Tongham starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it's run. The replies turn a range into a straight price.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Still beside the vehicle around Tongham?
Right now, the best thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Tongham or anywhere within Surrey.