Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tye Green
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does your motor. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it won't burn and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts once your pump begins drawing it. In Tye Green, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Tye Green: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Give us a postcode starting CM18 6, or whichever street is closest, and the van reaches you straight — so ring wherever you stand.
Never:
- Moving your car just a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Switching your key to ignition alone starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Even a short stretch up Rushes Mead is too far to drive the car.
- By the road, do not attempt emptying it yourself.
Moving your vehicle off the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Tye Green forecourt you are on, the Esso or any other. On your own drive, don't move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it goes directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. A fuel pump isn't made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of blending — entirely unlike fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and settles low where the pickup takes its supply from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Harlow overnight and hasn't been started since. The liquid sits at the foot of your tank, undrawn — though it would be first through if your engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. 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, so it keeps labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a car parked around Tye Green with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it's just inside your tank, it doesn't. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing past them, so the water part damages them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have an issue of thin fuel. Damage just comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and left in the tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, so it can't just be run through. Crystals and corrosion remain through the next fill, and AdBlue separates back out of the diesel, and so thinning it won't help. That is why the flush matters more, and turning your key "to see" costs more here than nearly any other slip — in Netteswell or the centre of Tye Green alike.
As with petrol, there's good news. Never run? Then the AdBlue sits just in your tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest in Essex.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Tye Green
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors rests right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually takes place at home, from a container grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside William Martin Church of England Junior School the refill is rushed. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway near John Dowdell Close. Else, after dark outside The Poplar Kitten, your car is topped up by someone using that flap for the first time.
The least known vehicles get it most — hire cars, new cars, fleet ones, and the spare vehicle of a home with both fuel types. Leave it off: that's the first step to the same mistake, anywhere around Tye Green or the remainder of Essex you happen to be.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Tye Green?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Through your filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each may show up, maybe part way across Tye Green or returning from Barn Mead Recreation Ground. Once safe, pull over and turn it off — with no turning it on again to see. Every start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M11, under 3 miles from Tye Green, by the first junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
Mileage matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into the system, so driving towards Chelmsford, under 25 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Tye Green to the car park by Baby. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Spotted quickly, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Tye Green
The vehicle remains put, whether that is a street near St Stephen, Tye Green Harlow, a drive, a layby or a filling station around Tye Green, and the van comes to it. The work depends on three replies, which our technicians ask for first — what was put in, the amount, and whether your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one when that tank is drained, on the spot. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, provided the engine has not run. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
The last step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive around Tye Green or in a space at Harlow Town. The check before we go is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. The whole job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Tye Green and where it is
Tye Green is a suburban area in Essex, situated on the riverside with an elevation of 71 metres, and is located near several other neighbourhoods including Brays Grove and Passmores. Tye Green has a mix of housing types, but terraced houses are the most predominant, and is positioned approximately 20 miles from London. Tye Green is close to the city of Chelmsford, which is about 16 miles away, and also near Latton Bush. Tye Green has a population of around 6802 residents.
AdBlue drains in Tye Green and across Essex
Brays Grove, Passmores and Latton Bush are among the towns around Tye Green that the same vans serve, along with most of Essex beyond, throughout the CM postcode area. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No towing is needed. In Tye Green, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: the car is drained on the spot, be it on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Tye Green: the cost of fixing it
Not one single price would be honest, since every job differs. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.
With that reason, each call from Tye Green opens by asking the same trio — what was put in, what quantity, if it ran — ahead of a quote. Those answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Next to the car around Tye Green, right now?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to leave it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Tye Green or anywhere around Essex.