AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Union Mews? Don't Start It
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. 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 when your pump begins drawing it. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the car stands around Union Mews. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Union Mews: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Take your keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the amount, and so don't bin it away.
- Our van locates you fastest with a postcode starting SW4 6, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Never do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the vehicle: your motor stays off.
- Many diesels power their pump the moment the ignition comes on, so keep the car off.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not weaken it.
- Keep it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way down Union Road.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
The staff on duty at any Union Mews forecourt — the Esso included — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. Neither side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. It drops, because it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its supply from. A car topped up on a driveway in Oval yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though once your motor turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises 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 lines, waiting till morning around Union Mews makes things worse. Inside that tank alone, time costs nothing. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Texaco and you have an issue of thin fuel. No damage is done while it stays unused, mixed into your diesel — only once your engine works on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue splits again from the diesel, so watering it won't help. That is why the flush counts more, and turning the key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other slip — in South Lambeth or the centre of Union Mews alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere around Greater London your car has stopped, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still in the reservoir: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Union Mews?
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap — can look the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of layouts allow it. It usually takes place outside the house, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Larkhall Primary Campus, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the vehicle. In the evening, a container goes in on a driveway close to Stirling Road. Otherwise, after dark outside The Phoenix, the car gets topped up by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It happens most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it switched off: that's the first response to the same mistake, anywhere around Union Mews or the rest of Greater London you are.
Union Mews: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. The filter and pipework have had it sucked along, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
You may notice your engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from The Kerb Garden or halfway across Union Mews. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M4, under 10 miles from Union Mews, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system. That is why crossing Union Mews to park beside St. John the Evangelist and a drive of under 3 miles for Westminster are very different jobs. Let us know about how far it had come.
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. If it's spotted soon, lasting damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Union Mews?
A road beside Love of Christ Generation Church, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has stopped in Union Mews, we come to it. Three answers shape the work, so first we ask which fluid was put in, roughly the amount, and if your motor has turned over.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. What remains from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. Fresh diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
The last step is to bleed your system on new diesel. Whether it's a parking space by Clapham High Street or a drive around Union Mews, that is where our engineers start it and you head off. Before we go, our engineers confirm it is running correctly with fresh diesel in. No garage is needed at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Union Mews, briefly
Union Mews is a locality in the heart of London, situated approximately 2.7 miles from the city centre and 2.2 miles from Westminster. Union Mews is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing and is surrounded by nearby places such as Stockwell, Clapham, and Brixton. Union Mews has a relatively low elevation of 18 metres, typical of the London area.
AdBlue drains across Union Mews and Greater London
Over the SW postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs around Union Mews serve most of Greater London too, Stockwell, Clapham and Brixton among them. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Union Mews is a neighbourhood, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Union Mews: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since each jobs vary, a flat figure would not be fair. What shifts the price is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind St. Andrew's.
With that in mind, every call from Union Mews opens with the same trio — what went in, how much, whether the engine ran — before any quote. Those replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Before a van heads out, you hear our quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
Union Mews: still beside the vehicle?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the most helpful move there is. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus whether the engine ran are everything we need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Greater London, Union Mews too.