AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Torr? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the engine off and keep your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage only starts once the pump begins drawing it. Caught before the motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Torr. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Torr: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- So no one can turn the ignition on, take your keys away.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're anywhere near moving traffic.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Call just where you are. Quote a PL8 2 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- Switching the key to ignition alone sets your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it's wasted.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch down Riverside Walk.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the kerbside.
On a forecourt in Torr, whether it's the Texaco or another one, ask the staff to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. On your own drive, don't touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your engine lets out. Nothing inside a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel that way.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Luson yesterday evening and left unstarted is the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but when your engine turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and narrow passages; and, since it eats at certain metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it stays inside. Where the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning around Torr leaves things worse. In that tank alone, time does nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water content harms them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Harvest Energy and you have an issue of thin fuel. No damage comes while it stays put, mixed into your diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether your car is in Burraton or the middle of Torr.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Emptying a tank is the simplest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in it — wherever around Devon the vehicle has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Torr: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then behind one flap — can appear the same. No one intends it; many designs allow it. Usually it is never the filling station: someone buys a container driving home and tips it in outside the house.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Yealmpton Primary School. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive close to Chapel Road. One more version: dim light, a pub car park by The Rose and Crown, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — rentals, new ones, fleet ones, and the spare motor in a family with both fuel types. Anywhere in Devon, Torr included, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first step: leave it off.
Torr: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. It's been drawn through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each may appear, maybe part way across Torr or coming back from Black Torr. Pull over when it is safe. Turn off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M5, under 50 miles from Torr, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Mileage matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so driving for Plymouth, under 10 miles away, gives a far larger job than crossing Torr to the car park by St Bartholomew's Church. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has stopped, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Spotted early, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves in Torr
Anywhere it has stopped in Torr — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a road beside Lime Kilns — the van comes to your car. Before anything else we ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if the engine has run, because those answers decide this work.
Then your tank is cleared where your car waits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is flushed all the way through because residue will not wash away by itself. Next, the filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a test of the car. If the engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes last. You head off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway in Torr or in a space at Ivybridge. It's tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs properly before our engineers go. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Torr itself
Torr is a small coastal locality in Devon, situated near the mouth of the River Yealm and close to the nearby villages of Yealmpton and Yealmbridge. Torr sits at a relatively low elevation of 32 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Torr is located approximately 6.9 miles from Plymouth, making it a commuter option for those working in the city. Torr has a population of around 548 residents, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Torr and Devon
Yealmpton, Yealmbridge and Dunstone are among the places around Torr that the same teams serve, together with much of Devon beyond, over the PL postcode area. Phone and check rather than guess when you are close to a border, or somewhere awkward to explain.
Torr is a coastal area, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Torr: the cost of fixing it
Every job differs, so no single quote is fair. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open drive is easier for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Viaduct.
That is why each call from Torr 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 quote.
You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Still beside your car around Torr?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move available. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Torr or wherever in Devon, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.