--- title: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank Wick — Don't Start It canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/adblue-in-diesel/wick-devon/ location: Wick county: Devon latitude: 50.831650 longitude: -3.178160 service: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank updated: 2026-10-23 --- # Wick: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the motor. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the fuel system pulls it in. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Wick. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103. ## Wick, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away Things to do: - Take the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on. - Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near. - Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and about how much. - Call just where you are. Say a EX14 4 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to search for you. Don't: - No starting the motor — not briefly, not to shift the car. - Turning the key to ignition alone sets your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it. - No extra fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it is pointless. - Even a short way along Dumpdon Lane is too far to drive it. - Don't try to drain the car yourself at the roadside. The attendants on duty at any Wick forecourt — the Regent included — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. At home, your car remains exactly as it is. ## AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. No part inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was intended to go that way. Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Heavier than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the very place the pickup draws from. A motor filled on a driveway in Luppitt yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though when the motor turns, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of the tank. From there it causes two kinds of damage. It attacks certain metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it touches until it's removed from the system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. Lines carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a vehicle parked in Wick. Just inside your tank, it stays the same. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing through them, so the water part damages them in its own right. ## Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger issue? A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the BP. No damage comes as long as it stays put, mixed into your diesel — only when the motor works on it. AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the following fill won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Wick or out in Northcote, does more harm than nearly any other mistake. With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside that tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere your car has stopped in Devon. ## How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Wick No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of motors sits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the typical story. It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Honiton Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Greenway Lane. Or the car is topped up in the car park at the pub in the village, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before. It takes place most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever across Devon, Wick included, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first step: leave it off. ## Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wick? Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Your filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and any running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector. You may notice your engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Dumpdon Plantation or halfway across Wick. Pull over when safe. Turn off. Keep the car off rather than testing it again. Every start pulls more of that through. If you were on the M5, under 10 miles from Wick, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on. Mileage counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system, and so driving towards Exeter, under 25 miles away, gives a much bigger job than hopping across Wick to the car park by Combe Raleigh Village Hall. Let us know about how far it had come. There is more to rinse out once the motor has run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has stopped. If it is spotted soon, lasting damage is very unusual. ## What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Wick The vehicle remains where it is, whether that's a road near St Nicholas, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Wick, and our van comes to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and whether the motor has been run, because those replies decide this work. Then your tank is cleared where the vehicle waits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is cleaned thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no problem, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark. The last step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, outside Honiton or on a drive around Wick. Our technicians confirm it runs properly on clean diesel before we leave. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to go to a workshop. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours afterwards. ## About Wick and where it is Wick is a small hamlet in Devon, situated inland at an elevation of 167 metres, and is located near the communities of Beacon, Monkton, and Combe Raleigh. Wick sits approximately 17 miles from Exeter, the nearest city, and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Wick remains a quiet, rural community with a small population of around 544 residents. Wick is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 140 miles. ## Wick and Devon: AdBlue drains across the area Beacon, Monkton and Combe Raleigh are among the towns around Wick that the same vans serve, along with much of Devon beyond, over the EX postcode area. Close to a boundary, or somewhere awkward to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring. Anywhere your vehicle sits — a driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a filling station — our engineers empty it on the spot, with no need to take it to us; which suits Wick, a rural hamlet, well. ## AdBlue in a diesel tank in Wick: the cost of fixing it Because the jobs vary, a single figure wouldn't be fair. What moves the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Luppitt Village Hall. That's why each call from Wick starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. Those replies shrink the range down to a single figure. Before a van sets off, you hear our price on the phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives. ## In Wick and still alongside the vehicle? Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful step available. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Wick or anywhere within Devon, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.