Upper Belvedere: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and your ignition too. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing starts until the engine sucks it through. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and thoroughly flushed where the vehicle stands around Upper Belvedere. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Upper Belvedere
Things to do:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, take your keys away.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Which product, and roughly how much volume? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and we can see.
- Tell us a postcode starting DA17 5, or whichever street lies nearest, and the van finds you directly — so call wherever you are.
Not to do:
- Moving the car even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to run the pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way down Nuxley Road.
- Emptying your tank on your own by the road is not one to try.
Get the attendants to help you move the car away from the pumps if you are on a forecourt around Upper Belvedere, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or somewhere else. On your own drive, don't move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. No part inside a fuel pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of that was meant to travel that way.
It doesn't combine. Once it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. Easiest of all: one that had AdBlue in Lower Belvedere overnight and hasn't turned since. The liquid waits at the base of the tank, untouched — though it would be first through if the engine starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
It causes two kinds of harm 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 components it hits for as long as it remains there. Lines holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car sitting around Upper Belvedere. Just inside that tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running past them, so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger problem?
A fault of thinned fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol from the BP. Harm just comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and left inside the tank, it does nothing.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, since it does not burn. Nor can it be thinned, because it separates again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Upper Belvedere or out in Lesnes Abbey, does more harm than nearly any other slip.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue remains in it — anywhere across Greater London the vehicle has stopped.
Upper Belvedere: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the forecourt.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Lessness Heath Primary School. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway near Stapley Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park at The Fox, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up most in a hire car, a new car, a fleet vehicle, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever across Greater London, Upper Belvedere as well, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first response: keep it off.
Upper Belvedere: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. Given any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed via the filter and pipework.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Belvedere Recreation Ground (South), say, or midway across Upper Belvedere. No restarting to test: pull over once safe, then turn it off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Upper Belvedere sits under 10 miles from the M25; if you were on it, exit by the next junction and stop safely instead of carrying on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue further into your system, so driving towards London, under 15 miles away, gives a much larger job than crossing Upper Belvedere to the car park by Free Grace Baptist Church. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the motor has been started. Noticed early, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Upper Belvedere
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Upper Belvedere: a side street close to Belvedere Baptist Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers decide the job, so first our engineers ask what was put in, roughly what quantity, plus whether your engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when the tank is drained, on the spot. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through since what remains will not wash away by itself. Next, your filter: flushed, or replaced if it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers arrive, provided your motor hasn't run. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Whether it is a parking bay by Belvedere or a drive in Upper Belvedere, that is where our technicians start the car and you set off. The check before we go is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to go to a garage. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Upper Belvedere
Upper Belvedere is a suburban area in southeast London, situated approximately 11.8 miles from central London. Upper Belvedere has a mix of semi-detached housing and is located near Lessness Heath, Belvedere, and West Heath. Upper Belvedere sits at an elevation of around 50 metres, in a gently sloping area of the London suburbs. Upper Belvedere is a residential community with a population of around 10009 people.
AdBlue drains across Greater London, Upper Belvedere included
AdBlue call-outs in Upper Belvedere are passed to teams that serve the towns near it — Lessness Heath, Belvedere plus West Heath — and most of Greater London beyond, across DA postcodes. Ring and check rather than guess if you are by a county line, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
Upper Belvedere is a residential suburb, 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 engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be moved to us.
Upper Belvedere: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Upper Belvedere Community Library.
Ahead of any quote, not after, every call from Upper Belvedere begins with three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus whether it ran. When they are answered, a range becomes one fixed figure.
Before a van sets off, you hear the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Upper Belvedere: still beside the vehicle?
Right now, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to leave it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Upper Belvedere or wherever in Greater London, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran.