Weston: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your motor off then leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The trouble starts once it is pulled through the lines — it won't ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the car stands in Weston. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Weston, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
To do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting PE12 6, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- The ignition remains off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start your pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Never drive it anywhere, not even a short way down Edgefield.
- Don't try to drain it yourself at the roadside.
The staff on duty at any Weston filling station — the BP among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. At home, your car remains exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and settles down where the intake takes its fuel from. A car topped up on a drive in Weston Hills overnight and not started since is the straightforward case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but when the motor turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. It eats at certain metals found in fuel systems, attacking any part it reaches till it's removed completely. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and lodge in narrow passages. Overnight, a car parked around Weston with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it's just inside the tank, nothing changes. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Gulf. It mixes with the diesel, and while it's inside the tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be thinned, because it separates back out — and the next tankful won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Weston or out in Low Fulney, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever in Lincolnshire the car has stopped, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue still in the reservoir: the simplest part of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Weston
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors rests right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it is not the filling station: a driver buys a bottle driving home and pours it in at home.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside Weston St Mary Church of England Primary School, after your dash flashed with a warning as the kids were dropped in. After work, a container goes in on a driveway close to Park Road. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, parked in the car park by Chequers.
Rented motors, brand-new vehicles, company vehicles, or the second vehicle in a home with both fuels: the least familiar cars see it most. Leave it switched off: that is the first response to an identical mistake, wherever in Weston or the rest of Lincolnshire you happen to be.
Weston: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Perhaps returning from Weston Playing Field, or part way across Weston, the motor may run lumpy, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or stall. No starting it again to test: pull over once safe, then switch it off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
If you were on the A1(M), under 25 miles from Weston, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Distance counts: every mile carries the AdBlue further in, and so driving towards Peterborough, under 25 miles away, makes a much larger job than hopping across Weston to the car park by Weston Village Hall. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. If it's spotted quickly, permanent damage is very unusual.
Weston: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest in Weston — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by St Mary — our van comes to the car. The job rests on three answers, which we get before all else — what got in, the quantity, and whether the engine has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together after your tank is emptied, right there. A full flush matters far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains will not wash away on its own. Next, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. Then clean diesel, and then a check of the car. Engine not run? Then expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
The last step is to prime your system on clean diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, at Spalding or on a drive around Weston. The test before our technicians leave is that it runs properly on clean diesel. No garage is required at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Weston itself
Weston is a small village in Lincolnshire, situated in the East Midlands region of England, with a low elevation of around 7 metres above sea level. Weston lies near the villages of Moulton and Loosegate, and is approximately 17.5 miles from the city of Peterborough. Weston has a population of around 992 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Weston and Lincolnshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Moulton, Loosegate and Wykeham are among the places near Weston that the same vans reach, together with much of Lincolnshire further out, over the PE postcode area. Near a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking beats guessing, so ring.
Weston is a rural village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Weston
Every job is different, and so not one fixed price would be fair. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the car, since an open drive is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Fun Farm High ropes.
For that reason, every call from Weston begins by asking the identical trio — which fluid was put in, what quantity, if it ran — before any figure. Given them, the range shrinks to one fixed figure.
The price is given on the call, before a van leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Check your insurance whilst we're on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
Still beside the vehicle in Weston?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move there is. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Weston or anywhere in Lincolnshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.