AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Woodend? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, leave the engine off and leave your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The harm begins once it's sucked through your pump — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Woodend. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Woodend: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Take your keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and about how much, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting OL5 9, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance along Manchester Road.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the verge.
Rolling the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, wherever Woodend forecourt you are on, the Gulf or any other. Parked on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays apart rather than mixing — entirely different from fuel. It sinks, because it is heavier than diesel, and settles low where the pickup draws its supply from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, which is why a car topped up in Brook Bottom yesterday and never started stays the simple case, as long as nobody touches the key.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. It eats at certain metals used in fuel systems, working on whatever it reaches until it is removed from your system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow passages. A motor left standing in Woodend with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Texaco and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is in that tank it causes no harm; the harm comes from running your motor on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. It cannot just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits back out — and the following fill will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Woodend or out in Sandbed, costs more than almost any other slip.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Greater Manchester the vehicle is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Woodend: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. A container bought while driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the usual route.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Milton St John's CofE Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. Near Roughtown Road, someone pours a bottle in at home in the evening. Else, after dark outside Church Inn, the vehicle gets refilled by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It happens most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it off: that's the first response to the same mistake, wherever in Woodend or the rest of Greater Manchester you are.
Woodend: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. With any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
You may notice your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Mossley Park or halfway across Woodend. Once safe, pull over then switch everything off — without turning it on again to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M60, under 5 miles from Woodend, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Woodend to the car park by St John the Baptist is a very different job from a run towards Manchester, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once your engine has been started. Permanent damage is very rare if it is spotted early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in Woodend
A road beside George Lawton Hall, a drive, a layby or a filling station: wherever the vehicle has stopped around Woodend, we come to it. Three answers decide the job, and so before anything else our technicians ask what was put in, about what quantity, and if your engine has turned over.
Next, draining the tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out by itself, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which counts far more with urea than for petrol. Next, your filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a check of the car. Not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes last. At that point we start it and you drive off, whether from a parking space at Mossley (Manchester) or a driveway in Woodend. Our engineers check it runs smoothly on new diesel before leaving. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Woodend
Woodend is a suburban area in Greater Manchester, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 146 metres. Woodend lies approximately 9 miles from Manchester and is surrounded by nearby places such as Roughtown, Quickwood, and Mossley Brow. Woodend has a population of around 4255 people and is predominantly composed of terraced housing. Woodend is located in the North West region of England, about 160 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Woodend and across Greater Manchester
Over the OL postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue jobs in Woodend serve most of Greater Manchester too, Roughtown, Quickwood and Mossley Brow included. Phone and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a county line, or somewhere awkward to explain.
No moving is needed. In Woodend, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is drained on the spot, be it in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
Woodend: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since each callouts vary, a single price would not be fair. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open driveway is easier for a technician to get to safely than a tight space behind St Joseph.
For that in mind, each call from Woodend opens with the same trio — which fluid went in, how much, whether the engine ran — ahead of a figure. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
You get that price on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Still alongside your car around Woodend?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Woodend or wherever in Greater Manchester, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.