AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Wimborne Minster? Keep It Switched Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you begin if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The harm starts once it is pulled through your lines — it won't burn, and it won't blend with diesel. In Wimborne Minster, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wimborne Minster
To do:
- Take the keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Give us a postcode starting BH21 1, or whatever street is closest, and our van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out instead of blending.
- Leave the vehicle where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way down Cook Row.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
Get the attendants to help you move your car off the pumps if you are on a forecourt in Wimborne Minster, whether it is the BP or elsewhere. If you're on your own drive, leave the car precisely where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't deal with urea.
It does not combine. After it's poured into the tank, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the same place the intake sucks from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Stone 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 causes two kinds of harm. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny channels and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. A car left sitting in Wimborne Minster with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, and that is a separate form of harm.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is in that tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay through the next fill, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, and so thinning it won't work. Hence the flush counts so much, and turning your key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Leigh or the heart of Wimborne Minster alike.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Anywhere across Dorset the vehicle has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Wimborne Minster?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars rests right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it's not the forecourt: someone buys a bottle driving home and pours it in outside the house.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Wimborne First School and Nursery the top-up is rushed. Close to High Street, someone tips a bottle in at home in the evening. One more version: dim light, a pub car park outside Oddfellows, and someone using that flap for the first time.
The least known vehicles get it most — hire cars, new cars, company cars, and the spare car in a home with both fuels. Wherever across Dorset, Wimborne Minster as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
Wimborne Minster: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. It's been sucked through your filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
You may notice the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Wimborne Model Town & Gardens or halfway across Wimborne Minster. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M27, under 25 miles from Wimborne Minster, at the first junction and park somewhere safe, not driving on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Wimborne Minster to park near Museum of East Dorset and a drive of under 25 miles towards Salisbury are very separate jobs. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Caught soon, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Wimborne Minster: what it takes
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Wimborne Minster: a side street near War Memorial, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three answers, which our technicians ask for first — which fluid was put in, the amount, and if the motor has turned over.
Next, emptying the tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because what remains will not flush out unaided. Next, your filter: flushed, or changed if it has to be. After that clean diesel, then a test of your vehicle. If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the street at night.
The last step is to bleed the system on clean diesel. Whether it is a parking space at Hamworthy or a drive in Wimborne Minster, that is where our technicians start it and you drive off. We make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel before we go. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Wimborne Minster itself
Wimborne Minster is a town situated in the English county of Dorset, where the rivers Stour and Allen meet. It is located near the Dorset Heaths and not far from the town of Poole. The town has a notable church and is part of a larger urban area in south east Dorset. Wimborne Minster is a riverside town with a historic character.
AdBlue drains across Dorset, Wimborne Minster included
AdBlue jobs in Wimborne Minster go to teams that serve the towns around it — East Brook, Rowlands as well as St Johns — and much of Dorset further out, throughout BH postcodes. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Anywhere your vehicle sits — a drive at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; which suits Wimborne Minster, a riverside town, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Wimborne Minster: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs are not the same. What changes the cost is, first, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then 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 Minster of St. Cuthburga.
Before any figure, never after, every enquiry from Wimborne Minster opens with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, plus if it ran. Their answers narrow a range right down to one number.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Beside your car around Wimborne Minster, right now?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the most useful move you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Tell us it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Wimborne Minster or anywhere within Dorset.