Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Upper Arncott
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your engine off and leave your ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system pulls it in. In Upper Arncott, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Upper Arncott, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- So nobody can turn the ignition on, pull your keys out.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly what amount? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Call right where you are. Say a OX25 1 postcode or the closest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Never do these:
- Moving your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Many diesels power their pump the moment your ignition comes on, so keep it off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Hopcraft Close.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
On a forecourt in Upper Arncott, whether it's the Shell or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. At your own driveway, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. Simplest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Piddington last night and hasn't turned since. The liquid waits at the base of that tank, undrawn — though it would be the first thing through if your engine starts, before any diesel at all.
It does two kinds of harm from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, attacking any part it touches until it's removed completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car sitting around Upper Arncott. Just inside your tank, it stays the same. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate kind of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that's the main issue. Damage only comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting in the tank, it does none.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the next fill, and AdBlue splits back out of the diesel, and so thinning it won't help. Hence the flush counts more, and trying the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly any other slip — in Murcott or the heart of Upper Arncott equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has stopped across Oxfordshire.
Upper Arncott: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually happens outside the house, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. Rushing, outside Five Acres Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. Someone pours the bottle in outside their house, right off Mill Lane, as the day ends. Otherwise, after dark by The Plough, your vehicle is topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It happens most in the cars 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 you're around Upper Arncott or the remainder of Oxfordshire, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Upper Arncott: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been pulled through the fuel filter and your lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Piddington Wood, or part way across Upper Arncott, your engine may run lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or cut out. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off rather than restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
On the M40, under 3 miles from Upper Arncott, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not carrying on.
Hopping across Upper Arncott to the car park by Arncott Village Hall is one matter; heading for Oxford, under 10 miles away, is another, because every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out once your engine has been run. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage if it is caught early.
Upper Arncott: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped around Upper Arncott — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by Tornado Jet — the van travels to your vehicle. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has been run, since those replies decide this work.
Then your tank is cleared where your car sits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue will not wash away unaided, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than for petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Last, the fuel system is bled with fresh diesel. At that point our technicians start the engine and you drive off, whether from a parking space outside Bicester Village or a drive around Upper Arncott. It's tested on clean diesel to be sure it runs properly before we go. As the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Upper Arncott
Upper Arncott is a small village in Oxfordshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 70 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Upper Arncott lies near the villages of Lower Arncott, Ambrosden, and Blackthorn, and is approximately 9 miles from Oxford. Upper Arncott has a population of around 973 residents, and its location allows for relatively easy access to London, which is about 48 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Upper Arncott and Oxfordshire
Throughout the OX postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs in Upper Arncott serve most of Oxfordshire too, Lower Arncott, Ambrosden and Blackthorn among them. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No towing is needed. In Upper Arncott, a rural village, a mobile service works: the car is emptied on the spot, be it on a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Upper Arncott: the cost of fixing it
Each job differs, and so not one single price is fair. Three things shift the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a van can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind Arncott Moto Parc.
Ahead of a quote, never afterwards, every call from Upper Arncott opens with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, and if it ran. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your policy while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Upper Arncott: still beside the vehicle?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Upper Arncott or anywhere in Oxfordshire.