AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Woodcote? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Being water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage only starts once your pump begins pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Woodcote, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the engine has been run. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Woodcote: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Which product, and about what quantity? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting CR8 4, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the car: the engine stays off.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to start your pump.
- Pouring in more diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out instead of thinning.
- Even a short distance along Manor Way is too far to drive it.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
At a forecourt around Woodcote, whether it is the Tesco or another one, ask the attendants to help you push the vehicle clear of the pump. If you're on your own drive, leave the car just where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. Nothing in a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and no part of it was intended to travel that way.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is heavier than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a driveway in Clock House overnight and not started since is the simple case. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up so far — but when the motor turns, that's what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
It causes 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, so it keeps running on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. Overnight, a vehicle sitting around Woodcote with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it is just inside that tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more serious than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the Shell, and this problem is thinned fuel. No damage comes as long as it stays put, mixed into the diesel — only once the engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Little Woodcote or the middle of Woodcote.
As with petrol, there's good news. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only in that tank, the easiest bit of the whole system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has stopped across Greater London.
Woodcote: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not on purpose. Many cars have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Usually it is never the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside Woodcote Primary School the top-up is rushed. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, just off Woodcote Valley Road, as the day ends. Else, in dim light outside The Foxley Hatch, the vehicle gets refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
The least known vehicles get it the most — rentals, brand-new cars, company cars, and the other car in a family with one of each fuel types. Wherever you're around Woodcote or the rest of Greater London, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Woodcote?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, after passing through your filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may appear, maybe midway across Woodcote or coming back from Woodcote Village Green. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M23, under 5 miles from Woodcote, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That is why crossing Woodcote to park near Coulsdon & Purley Village Green and a drive of under 15 miles for Westminster are very different jobs. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once your engine has run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has ended up. Permanent damage is very unusual if it's spotted quickly.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Woodcote
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that is a road beside Promenade Du Verdun War Memorial, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station around Woodcote, and our van comes to it. Three replies decide the work, so before anything else we ask what got in, roughly the amount, and whether the motor has run.
On the spot, that tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out at once. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced when it must be. Then fresh diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding your system with clean diesel comes at the end. Whether it is a parking space by Reedham (London) or a driveway in Woodcote, that is where we start it and you drive off. It is checked on fresh diesel to confirm it runs correctly before we leave. We do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never has to be taken to a garage. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Woodcote itself
Woodcote is a suburban area in south London, situated approximately 12 miles from central London and near the towns of Purley and Coulsdon. Woodcote sits at an elevation of around 106 metres, with predominantly detached housing stock. Woodcote is close to Russell Hill and other residential areas, forming part of the wider suburban landscape of Greater London.
AdBlue drains across Woodcote and Greater London
AdBlue jobs around Woodcote go to teams that cover the towns around it — Russell Hill, Purley plus Coulsdon — and much of Greater London further out, across CR postcodes. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Woodcote is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Woodcote: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs are not the same. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind St Swithun's.
Before any quote, never afterwards, every call from Woodcote begins with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and whether the engine ran. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is travelling, check your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Next to your car around Woodcote, right now?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Woodcote or wherever within Greater London, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.