AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Winchcombe? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep the engine off then keep your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Being water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; damage only comes once the pump begins drawing it. In Winchcombe, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs usually comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Winchcombe: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Remove the keys, and that stops anyone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting GL54 5, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Shifting your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Switching your key to ignition alone starts the pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it's wasted.
- Even a short stretch up North Street is too far to drive the car.
- By the road, don't try emptying it on your own.
The attendants working at any Winchcombe forecourt — the Gulf among them — will normally lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the car just where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into your exhaust, and there it treats the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than blending — entirely unlike fuel. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that's just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. When the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Gretton last night and not started remains the straightforward one, as long as nobody turns the key.
Two kinds of harm follow 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 labouring on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. A car left standing around Winchcombe with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing through them, so the water content damages them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
An issue of thinned fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Esso. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside the tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Hailes or the middle of Winchcombe.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever in Gloucestershire your vehicle has stopped, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest part of any fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Winchcombe?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors sits right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Winchcombe Abbey Church of England Primary School the refill is hurried. Someone tips the container in outside their house, just off High Street, as the day ends. Otherwise, in dim light by White Hart Inn, your car is refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that is the first response to the same mistake, anywhere in Winchcombe or the remainder of Gloucestershire you happen to be.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Winchcombe, and the engine started?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed via the filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from The Dell, perhaps, or midway across Winchcombe. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep the car off instead of restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M5, under 10 miles from Winchcombe, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to park — not carrying on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That's why a hop across Winchcombe to park beside Winchcombe Museum and a drive of under 15 miles for Gloucester are such separate jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
There's more to rinse out once the engine has been started, and our technicians do all of it where the vehicle has stopped. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it's noticed soon.
Winchcombe: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Anywhere it has stopped in Winchcombe — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a road by Winchcombe Library — our van travels to the car. Before anything else we ask what was put in, about how much, and if the motor has run, because those replies settle this work.
Then the tank is emptied where your car sits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since residue won't wash out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
The last step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you set off from where the car is parked, at Ashchurch for Tewkesbury or on a drive in Winchcombe. Before leaving, our technicians confirm it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. Because the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Winchcombe and where it is
Winchcombe is a small town in Gloucestershire, situated on the banks of the River Isbourne at an elevation of around 95 metres. Winchcombe lies near the Cotswold escarpment, close to the villages of Footbridge, Greet, and Postlip, and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Winchcombe is located approximately 13.5 miles from Gloucester and 84.4 miles from London, making it a commuter town with a population of around 4733 residents.
Winchcombe and Gloucestershire: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout the GL postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Winchcombe serve most of Gloucestershire as well, Footbridge, Greet and Postlip among them. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Anywhere your car sits — your driveway at home, a residential street, a parking area, a forecourt — our engineers drain it on the spot, and there's no need to bring it to us; which suits Winchcombe, a riverside town, well.
Winchcombe: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There's no fair single price, since the jobs aren't the same. The price moves first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Saint Peter's.
For that reason, every enquiry from Winchcombe opens by asking the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, whether it ran — ahead of any figure. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As the van is on the way, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Winchcombe: still next to your car?
Then, the best thing to do with your car is to leave it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether it ran are all we need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across Gloucestershire, Winchcombe too.