AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Westcroft? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave your motor off and leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing starts until the engine sucks it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Westcroft, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your motor has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Westcroft, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Which product, and about how much amount? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our technicians can see.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting MK4 4, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: the engine remains off.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start your pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short way down H7 Chaffron Way is too far to drive it.
- Draining the tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Get the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the pumps if you're on a forecourt around Westcroft, whether it is the Morrisons or elsewhere. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust to treat the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps apart rather than mixing — entirely unlike fuel. It drops, because it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake draws its fuel from. A vehicle filled on a drive in Tattenhoe overnight and not started since is the simple case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but when your engine runs, that is what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What is left when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and clog filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it's flushed out. A car left standing in Westcroft with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. The water in it does harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more major than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the BP, and this issue is diluted fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is in your tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. Since it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Crystals and corrosion remain after the next fill, and AdBlue separates again from your diesel, and so thinning it won't help. That is why the flush counts more, and turning the key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Tattenhoe Park or the centre of Westcroft alike.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits just inside your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has stopped in Buckinghamshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Westcroft: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors waits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is not the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Giles Brook Primary School. Close to Portishead Drive, a driver tips a container in on the drive after work. Another pattern: darkness, the car park outside The Nut and Squirrel, and a driver using that flap for the first time.
The least known vehicles see it most — rentals, new cars, fleet ones, and the other vehicle in a home with one of each fuel types. Wherever around Buckinghamshire, Westcroft included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Westcroft?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been sucked through the filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Howe Park Wood, or part way across Westcroft, the motor might run rough, smoke, lose power, flash your dash or stall. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M1, under 10 miles from Westcroft, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
Hopping across Westcroft to the car park by Frog Band is one matter; heading towards Milton Keynes, under 5 miles away, is another, because every mile carries the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to rinse out once the motor has been run, and we do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage if it's caught soon.
Westcroft: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A road by Westcroft Library, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest around Westcroft, our engineers come to it. Before anything else we ask what was put in, about how much, and if the engine has been run, since those replies decide the work.
Next, draining the tank right there removes the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue in one go. The system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians get there, if your engine hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
The last step is to bleed the system on fresh diesel. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a drive in Westcroft or in a bay by Milton Keynes Central. The test before our technicians leave is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. No workshop is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers want.
About Westcroft
Westcroft is a suburban area in Buckinghamshire, situated approximately 3.4 miles from Milton Keynes and 44.5 miles northwest of London. Westcroft sits at an elevation of around 106 metres, surrounded by other residential areas such as Kingsmead, Oxley Park, and Emerson Valley. Westcroft is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its development as a residential suburb. Westcroft has a population of around 4778 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across Buckinghamshire, Westcroft included
Throughout the MK postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue jobs around Westcroft serve most of Buckinghamshire too, Kingsmead, Oxley Park and Emerson Valley among them. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Westcroft is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Westcroft: the cost of fixing it
No flat figure could be honest, since each job is different. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind St. Giles’ Church.
Before a quote, never afterwards, each call from Westcroft opens with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether the engine ran. Those answers narrow a range right down to a single number.
You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Check your policy while we are on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
Still next to the car around Westcroft?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Westcroft or anywhere within Buckinghamshire.