Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Wisborough Green
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble begins once it is pulled through the lines — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle stands in Wisborough Green. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Wisborough Green: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Take your keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a RH14 0 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Never do these:
- Shifting your car even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short distance up Newpound Lane.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it on your own.
At a forecourt in Wisborough Green, whether it is the EG On the Move or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. At your own drive, do not move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. Stored in a dedicated tank, it's squirted into the exhaust to clean the fumes. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Andrews Hill yesterday and never started stays the straightforward one, as long as no one touches your key.
It does two kinds of damage 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 components it hits for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a car sitting in Wisborough Green with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it's only inside the tank, it doesn't. Then there's the water: it brings no protection to the parts that need it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Shell, and the issue is diluted fuel. Blended into your diesel and left unused, it's no threat for now; running your motor is the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates back out — and the next fill won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Wisborough Green or out in Parbrook, does more harm than almost any other mistake.
As with petrol, there is good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue sits only in the tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has come to rest around West Sussex.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Wisborough Green
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. It mostly happens at home, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside Wisborough Green Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone refills the car. Near School Road, a driver pours a bottle in on the drive after work. Or someone new to that flap refills your vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park by The Cricketers' Arms.
The least familiar vehicles see it most — hire cars, new cars, fleet cars, and the other motor of a family with one of each fuels. Wherever you are in Wisborough Green or the rest of West Sussex, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Wisborough Green, and the engine started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Through the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is how far it travels.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Wisborough Green Village Green or halfway across Wisborough Green. Once safe, pull over and turn everything off — with no restarting to test. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Leave the M23, under 15 miles from Wisborough Green, by the next junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
Hopping across Wisborough Green to the car park by St Peter ad Vincula is one matter; heading for Chichester, under 25 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the car has stopped, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very rare if it is noticed soon.
Wisborough Green: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Our engineers come to your car, wherever it has stopped in Wisborough Green: a side street near The Zoar Chapel, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job rests on three answers, and our engineers ask for before all else — which fluid got in, the amount, and whether your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one after the tank is drained, right there. A careful flush matters much more after AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains won't wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after your filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our technicians arrive, if the engine has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the final step. You set off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Wisborough Green or in a space by Billingshurst. It's tested on fresh diesel to confirm it runs properly before our engineers head off. Because the job is done in full where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Wisborough Green, briefly
Wisborough Green is a village situated in the riverside setting of the River Arun in West Sussex, with an elevation of around 25 metres. Wisborough Green lies near several common lands, including Newpound Common and Roundstreet Common, and is close to the village of Kirdford. Wisborough Green has a population of approximately 895 residents, predominantly living in detached housing. Wisborough Green is located 37.1 miles from London and 17.7 miles from the city of Chichester.
AdBlue drains across West Sussex, Wisborough Green included
AdBlue jobs around Wisborough Green are passed to teams that cover the towns around it — Newpound Common, Roundstreet Common as well as Kirdford — and much of West Sussex further out, throughout RH postcodes. Phone and check instead of guessing when you're close to a county line, or somewhere tricky to explain.
Wisborough Green is a village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
Wisborough Green: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Not one flat price could be fair, because each job is different. Whether the motor has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open driveway is easier for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Fishers Farm Park.
Ahead of a figure, never afterwards, each call from Wisborough Green begins with three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus whether the engine ran. With them, the range shrinks to a single fixed figure.
Our quote is given on the call, before a van sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Wisborough Green: still beside the car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Wisborough Green or wherever in West Sussex, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran.