AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Woodloes Park? Keep It Switched Off
Motor off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens until your engine pulls it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Woodloes Park, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the motor has been run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Woodloes Park
To do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring right where you are. Quote a CV34 5 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: the engine stays off.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Cowper Close.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, on the verge.
The attendants on duty at any Woodloes Park forecourt — the BP included — will usually help rolling it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a dedicated reservoir it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what your engine emits. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Emscote last night, and has not been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
After it is drawn in, the damage takes two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that crystallises in filters and narrow channels; meanwhile, because it attacks some metals, every part it touches suffers for as long as it stays in there. Lines holding AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car parked around Woodloes Park. Only inside that tank, it stays the same. The water in it causes harm of its own: your high-pressure pump and your injectors depend 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 Tesco and you have a fault of thin fuel. No harm is done as long as it stays put, mixed into your diesel — only when your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. 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 counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in The Cape or the middle of Woodloes Park.
As with petrol, there is good news. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside the tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to empty, wherever the vehicle has stopped around Warwickshire.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Woodloes Park: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles waits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A bottle bought while heading home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
Mostly, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside Woodloes Primary School, after a warning lamp came on during the school run, someone tops up your car. Someone tips the container in at home, just off Woodloes Avenue North, as the day ends. Or a driver new to that flap tops up the car after dark, parked in the car park outside Woodloes Tavern.
It happens most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical slip, same first step — leave it switched off — wherever you happen to be in Woodloes Park or the rest of Warwickshire.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Woodloes Park?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via your filter, through the lines, and — given any running — on to the injection pump and every injector: that is how far it has gone.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Guy's Cliffe Walled Garden, perhaps, or part way across Woodloes Park. When you safely can, stop and switch it off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M40, under 3 miles from Woodloes Park, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to park — not driving on.
Mileage matters: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving for Coventry, under 10 miles away, gives a far bigger job than crossing Woodloes Park to the car park by Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the engine has been run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has ended up. Long-term damage is very unusual if it's caught early.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Woodloes Park
Anywhere it has come to rest in Woodloes Park — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside Guy of Warwick — the van comes to your car. Three replies shape the work, so first we ask what was put in, roughly the amount, and whether the engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when the tank is emptied, on the spot. A careful flush counts much more after AdBlue than after petrol, since residue will not wash out on its own. Testing the vehicle comes at the end, once clean diesel is added and the fuel filter gets flushed or, if needed, swapped. If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Our equipment is explosion-proof, and so a live filling station is no fault, and it's hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on fresh diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, outside Warwick or on a driveway around Woodloes Park. The test before our engineers head off is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Woodloes Park itself
Woodloes Park is a locality situated on the River Leam in Warwickshire, with a mix of housing types but predominantly detached homes. Woodloes Park lies near the city of Coventry, about 8 miles to the southeast, and is close to other nearby places such as Guys Cliffe and Packmores. Woodloes Park has a population of around 3171 residents and is located at an elevation of 58 metres above sea level. Woodloes Park is also within commuting distance to London, being approximately 82 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Woodloes Park and Warwickshire
Guys Cliffe, Packmores and Cliff Hill are among the towns near Woodloes Park that the same teams reach, together with much of Warwickshire beyond, throughout the CV postcode area. Assuming won't help close to a county line or anywhere tricky to describe; ring and check.
Anywhere the car stands — a drive at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — our technicians drain it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Woodloes Park, a small village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Woodloes Park?
No flat price would be honest, because each job differs. Three things shift the cost: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether our van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight spot behind Guy's Cliffe House.
Ahead of a figure, not after, each enquiry from Woodloes Park opens with the same three checks: the fuel, the quantity, and if the engine ran. Their answers narrow a range right down to one number.
You get that price by 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.
Woodloes Park: still alongside the car?
Then, touch nothing — that's the most helpful move there is. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether the engine ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest throughout Warwickshire, Woodloes Park included.