West Southbourne: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, leave your engine off then keep the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system draws it in. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits in West Southbourne. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around West Southbourne: the first few minutes
Do:
- Pocket the keys, which stops anyone switching the power on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, so don't bin it away.
- The van locates you fastest with a postcode starting BH6 5, or simply the name of a street close by, so call from the car.
Do not:
- Shifting the vehicle just a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Your ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, even a short stretch up Ravenscourt Road.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
On a forecourt around West Southbourne, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed directly to the exhaust, cleaning what the engine lets out. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays apart instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and pools below it — the very spot the intake draws from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Southbourne last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
From there it does two kinds of harm. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, attacking whatever it reaches till it's removed from the system. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and lodge in tiny passages. A motor left sitting in West Southbourne with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water part damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's frequently worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Tesco and you have an issue of thin fuel. Mixed through your diesel and left still, it is no threat at that stage; running your engine is the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits again — and the following tankful will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of West Southbourne or out in Littledown, does more harm than almost any other error.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue sits just inside your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere your vehicle has come to rest in Dorset.
West Southbourne: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, now and then behind one flap — can look the same. Nobody means it; plenty of designs allow it. A container picked up when driving home and poured in at home, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical route.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Stourfield Junior School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up your car. After work, a container is tipped in on a driveway near Stamford Road. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Grove Tavern, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar vehicles see it most — hire cars, new ones, fleet cars, and the spare vehicle of a family with one of each fuels. Anywhere across Dorset, West Southbourne as well, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first response: leave it switched off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in West Southbourne?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Your filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running time carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may appear, maybe part way across West Southbourne or returning from Fisherman's Walk. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
On the M27, under 25 miles from West Southbourne, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That is why a hop across West Southbourne to park beside Trinity Methodist Church and a drive of under 25 miles towards Southampton are very different jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after your engine has been started. Lasting damage is very uncommon when it's spotted early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around West Southbourne
Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped in West Southbourne: a side street near All Saints, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work rests on three answers, and our engineers ask for before all else — what got in, the amount, and whether the motor has turned over.
Right there, that tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. A careful flush counts far more after AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains will not clear out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, the fuel system is primed with fresh diesel. Whether it is a parking bay by Pokesdown or a drive in West Southbourne, that is where our engineers start the car and you head off. We make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before leaving. No garage is required at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About West Southbourne
West Southbourne is a coastal suburban area in Dorset, situated near the towns of Pokesdown and Iford, with Tuckton to the east. West Southbourne has a population of around 11567 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. West Southbourne sits at a low elevation of approximately 15 metres above sea level, close to the coast. West Southbourne is located near the city of Southampton, which is 21.6 miles away, and is about 90.7 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Dorset, West Southbourne included
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs in West Southbourne also cover the locations around it, Pokesdown, Iford and Tuckton among them, and most of Dorset beyond, across the BH postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Anywhere the vehicle stands — a driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a filling station — our technicians empty it there, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits West Southbourne, a residential suburb, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in West Southbourne: the cost of fixing it
Each job is different, and so no fixed price would be honest. What changes the cost is, first, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Trinity Church Hall.
Before any figure, not afterwards, every call from West Southbourne begins with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and if it ran. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
You get that price by phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is on the way, check your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Still next to the vehicle in West Southbourne?
In that case, do nothing — that is the most helpful step available. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if the engine ran are everything our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest across Dorset, West Southbourne too.