AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wing? Don't Start It
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens till your motor sucks it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Wing, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the motor has run. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Wing: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, take your keys out.
- Near moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call right where you are. Say a LU7 0 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift the vehicle: the motor remains off.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance up Church Street.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, on the verge.
Rolling the vehicle off the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Wing forecourt you are on, the Shell included. On that drive, the car stays just as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your engine. From a separate reservoir it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It drops, because it's denser than diesel, and settles down where the pickup draws its supply from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Ledburn yesterday evening and not started since is the simple case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though once the engine turns, that is what goes first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, working on any part it reaches till it's cleared from the system. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. Overnight, a vehicle sitting in Wing with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it is just inside that tank, it doesn't. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Tesco and you have a fault of thin fuel. No harm is done while it stays unused, mixed into your diesel — only when the motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't 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 nearly anywhere else, whether your car is in Crafton or the middle of Wing.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only inside that tank, the simplest section of the entire system to empty, anywhere your car has come to rest across Buckinghamshire.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Wing
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under a single flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Overstone Combined School. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Orchard Way. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside The Queen's Head, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a fleet car, or the other vehicle of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers use the least. Wherever you're in Wing or the rest of Buckinghamshire, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Wing: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through your filter, through the pipework, and — with any running — into the injection pump and every injector: that's where it has gone.
Perhaps coming back from Jubilee Green, or part way across Wing, the motor might run lumpy, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or stall. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Keep the car off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M1, under 10 miles from Wing, by the first junction and park somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
Distance counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into the system, so heading for Milton Keynes, under 15 miles away, gives a much bigger job than hopping across Wing to the car park by All Saints. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it is spotted quickly.
Wing: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Our technicians come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Wing: a side street near Wing Community Library, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has run, since those answers determine the work.
Next, emptying your tank right there removes the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. A full flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains won't clear away by itself. Testing the vehicle follows at the end, once clean diesel goes in and your filter is cleaned or, if necessary, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our technicians arrive, if your motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming the system with new diesel comes at the end. Then our technicians start it and you head off, whether from a parking bay by Leighton Buzzard or a driveway around Wing. Our engineers confirm it runs correctly on fresh diesel before we leave. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never has to go to a workshop. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Wing itself
Wing is a rural village in Buckinghamshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 125 metres. Wing lies approximately 36.9 miles northwest of London and 10.3 miles southeast of Milton Keynes, near the villages of Lower Ascott, Burcott, and Ascott. Wing has a population of around 2002 residents, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Buckinghamshire, Wing included
The teams that answer AdBlue call-outs around Wing also cover the locations about it, Lower Ascott, Burcott and Ascott among them, and most of Buckinghamshire beyond, across the LU postcode area. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Wherever the vehicle sits — a drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a filling station — we drain it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits Wing, a rural village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Wing
Not one single price would be honest, because each job is different. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Wing Village Hall.
That's why every call from Wing starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it's run. When they are known, a range becomes a single fixed number.
Before anyone heads out, you hear our quote on the phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
In Wing and still next to the car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Wing or anywhere within Buckinghamshire, after you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.