West Clandon: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave the engine off then keep the ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The trouble starts once it is pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it won't blend with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around West Clandon, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before your engine has been run. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around West Clandon: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Remove the keys, which prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting GU4 7, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Do not start your engine, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not weaken it.
- Even a short way up Meadowlands is too far to drive it.
- By the road, don't try draining it yourself.
The staff working at any West Clandon forecourt — the Shell included — will usually help pushing it aside if you ask. At your own drive, do not move it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into the exhaust, where it cleans the fumes. A fuel pump isn't made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Bushy Hill last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps labouring on the components it gets to for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a vehicle parked around West Clandon with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it is just in the tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water gives none of that, which is a separate form of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the BP, and this problem is diluted fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. It doesn't burn, so it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay through the next fill, and AdBlue splits again from the diesel, so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush counts so much, and turning your key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other mistake — in Burpham or the heart of West Clandon alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits just inside the tank, the easiest section of the entire system to empty, wherever your vehicle has stopped in Surrey.
West Clandon: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. A container bought while heading home and tipped in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical route.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside Clandon CofE Aided Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills the vehicle. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway near The Street. One more pattern: darkness, the car park by The Onslow Arms, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
Rented cars, new motors, fleet vehicles, or the second car in a home with both fuels: the least known vehicles see it most. Wherever you're in West Clandon or the rest of Surrey, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around West Clandon?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Given any running time, it travels to the injection pump and each injector, having passed through your filter and pipework.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from West Clandon Recreation Ground or halfway across West Clandon. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M25, under 5 miles from West Clandon, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across West Clandon to the car park by West Clandon Village Hall is a very different job from a run towards Westminster, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
There is more to flush once the engine has been run, and we do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Caught soon, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in West Clandon?
A road by Clandon Park, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere your vehicle has stopped in West Clandon, our engineers travel to it. What went in, roughly how much, and if the engine has been run: our technicians check first, since those shape the job.
Right there, your tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. Residue from AdBlue will not wash away by itself, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which counts much more here than with petrol. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced if it must be. After that fresh diesel, then a test of your car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, if the engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. You head off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive in West Clandon or in a bay at Clandon. Our technicians make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before we go. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never has to go to a workshop. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About West Clandon, briefly
West Clandon is a small village in Surrey, situated inland at an elevation of around 64 metres, approximately 23.5 miles from London. West Clandon lies near the villages of East Clandon, Merrow, and Burntcommon, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. West Clandon has a population of around 605 residents, making it a quiet and intimate community.
West Clandon and Surrey: AdBlue drains across the area
East Clandon, Merrow and Burntcommon are among the towns near West Clandon that the same vans reach, along with most of Surrey further out, throughout the GU postcode area. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of guessing.
West Clandon is a rural village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around West Clandon
Since each jobs vary, a flat price would not be honest. Three things move the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether our van can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight spot behind St Peter & St Paul's Church.
Ahead of any quote, never afterwards, each enquiry from West Clandon opens with three questions: the fuel, the amount, and if the engine ran. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Before a van heads out, you are told our quote on the phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: many include misfuelling.
West Clandon: still alongside the vehicle?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether it ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest across Surrey, West Clandon too.