AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Whittlesey? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Being water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage just comes when your pump begins drawing it. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Whittlesey. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Whittlesey: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Remove your keys, and that stops anyone switching the power on.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- Which product, and about what quantity? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Call just where you are. Say a PE7 1 postcode or the closest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Not to do:
- Do not start your motor, even for a moment to shift the car.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, so it is pointless.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Market Place.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll the vehicle off the pumps if you are at a forecourt in Whittlesey, whether it's the BP or elsewhere. At your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, where it treats the gas. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
It does not combine. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Reach last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It does two kinds of harm from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning in Whittlesey makes it worse. In the tank only, waiting costs nothing. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate kind of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is in that tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Not burning, it can't just be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't 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 almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Church Field or the middle of Whittlesey.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Wherever in Cambridgeshire your vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the simplest bit of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Whittlesey
It's not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. The top-up gets rushed outside Park Lane Primary & Nursery School, because the dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped in. Someone tips the bottle in at home, just off High Causeway, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light by The George Hotel, your vehicle gets refilled by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
Hired motors, new vehicles, company cars, or the second vehicle in a home with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Wherever across Cambridgeshire, Whittlesey as well, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first step: leave it off.
Whittlesey: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. The fuel filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Maybe returning from Manor Field, or part way across Whittlesey, the motor may run lumpy, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or stall. When you safely can, pull over then turn it off — without turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the Great North Road, under 10 miles from Whittlesey, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Whittlesey to the car park by Whittlesey War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Peterborough, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
We do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the engine has been started there is more of it. Spotted quickly, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Whittlesey?
A street by Whittlesey Town Council, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt: wherever your vehicle has stopped in Whittlesey, we come to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, roughly how much, and if the motor has been run, since those replies determine this work.
Right there, that tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Last, the fuel system is bled with clean diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, at Whittlesea or on a driveway around Whittlesey. The check before our engineers leave is that it runs smoothly on fresh diesel. As the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Whittlesey, for a moment
Whittlesey is a town situated on the banks of the River Nene in Cambridgeshire, with a low elevation of around 11 metres above sea level. Whittlesey lies near the city of Peterborough, approximately 5 miles to the east, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Inhams End and Briggate. Whittlesey has a population of around 13833 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Whittlesey is located about 72.5 miles north of London, in the Eastern region of England.
AdBlue drains across Whittlesey and Cambridgeshire
AdBlue call-outs in Whittlesey are passed to teams that serve the places near it — Inhams End, Briggate as well as Bassenhally Field — and much of Cambridgeshire further out, throughout PE postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
A mobile service fits Whittlesey, a riverside town: you have no need to take your car to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Whittlesey: the cost of fixing it
Because each jobs vary, a single figure would not be honest. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind St Mary's Church.
What went in, what quantity, plus if the engine ran: each Whittlesey call begins by asking exactly those, before any figure, not afterwards. With them, the range narrows to one fixed number.
Before a van sets off, you are told the quote by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Beside the car in Whittlesey, right now?
Not touching the car is, right now, the most useful move you can do. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Whittlesey or anywhere around Cambridgeshire.