Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Upper Soundwell
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep the motor off and leave your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage only comes once the pump starts pulling it. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully cleaned where the vehicle stands in Upper Soundwell. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Upper Soundwell: AdBlue in the diesel tank
To do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, pull the keys out.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting BS16 4, or simply the name of a street nearby, so phone from the spot.
Don't do these:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to reposition your car.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not thin it.
- Never drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch along Pembroke Road.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it on your own.
At a forecourt in Upper Soundwell, whether it's the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive, leave it just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a dedicated tank it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine lets out. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
It does not combine. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue acts not at all like diesel. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects below it — the same place the pickup draws from. Easiest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Staple Hill last night and has not turned since. The AdBlue waits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — though it would be the first thing through if your engine starts, before any diesel at all.
Once it is sucked in, the harm comes in two forms. It attacks certain metals found in fuel components, working on any part it reaches till it is cleared from the system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny passages. If the AdBlue is in the pipework, leaving it till morning around Upper Soundwell leaves things worse. In that tank only, waiting does nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger issue?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Morrisons and you have an issue of thin fuel. No harm comes as long as it stays put, blended into the diesel — only once your engine runs on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is 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 the car is in Hillfields or the middle of Upper Soundwell.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Anywhere in Gloucestershire your car has stopped, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue yet in the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Upper Soundwell?
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — may look the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of layouts invite it. Usually it's never the forecourt: a driver buys a container heading home and pours it in at home.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. The top-up gets hurried outside St Stephen's Church of England Junior School, Soundwell, after the dash lit up with a warning while the children were taken in. A driver pours the bottle in at home, just off Gladstone Street, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light by The Turnpike, your car is topped up by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to the same slip, anywhere in Upper Soundwell or the rest of Gloucestershire you are.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Upper Soundwell?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. The fuel filter and lines have had it pulled through, and some running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each might appear, perhaps midway across Upper Soundwell or coming back from Lees Hill Playing Field. No restarting to check: pull over when safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M32, under 3 miles from Upper Soundwell, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Upper Soundwell to the car park by St Stephen's Church is a very different job from a run towards Bristol, under 5 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out once the motor has been run. When it is noticed quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
Upper Soundwell: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A road beside Kingswood Leisure Centre, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: wherever your car has come to rest in Upper Soundwell, our engineers come to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether the engine has been run, because those answers determine the work.
Next, emptying that tank right there removes the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through because what remains won't wash away unaided. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your motor hasn't run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no fault, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming your system with new diesel comes last. Whether it's a parking space outside Stapleton Road or a drive around Upper Soundwell, that is where our engineers fire it up and you set off. The check before we leave is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Upper Soundwell, for a moment
Upper Soundwell is a suburban area located in Gloucestershire, situated approximately 4.4 miles from Bristol and 102.3 miles from London. Upper Soundwell sits at an elevation of 97 metres, surrounded by nearby places such as Hopewell Hill, Soundwell, and Lower Soundwell. Upper Soundwell has a population of around 10085 people and is predominantly composed of terraced housing. Upper Soundwell is part of the larger urban area surrounding Bristol, with the city's influence shaping its development.
AdBlue drains around Upper Soundwell and across Gloucestershire
Hopewell Hill, Soundwell and Lower Soundwell are among the places around Upper Soundwell that the same vans serve, together with most of Gloucestershire beyond, over the BS postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A mobile service fits Upper Soundwell, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our technicians drain it on the spot, in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Upper Soundwell: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job differs, so no single quote is honest. Three things change the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a van can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind Soundwell Spiratualist Church.
Before a quote, not afterwards, every call from Upper Soundwell begins with the same three questions: the fuel, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we're on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Still next to the vehicle in Upper Soundwell?
Not touching your car is, then, the best move you can do. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Upper Soundwell or anywhere within Gloucestershire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether it ran.