Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Woodston
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep the engine off — and your ignition as well. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens until your engine pulls it round. In Woodston, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Your next steps straight away, Woodston: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and our technicians can know.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting PE2 9, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Do not:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to reposition the car.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment the ignition goes on, so leave the vehicle off.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch up Orton Avenue.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the verge.
At a forecourt in Woodston, whether it's the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. 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, will not. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Peterborough last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
It does two kinds of harm 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 running on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a car sitting in Woodston with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it's just inside that tank, nothing changes. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, and that is a second form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have an issue of thin fuel. Blended through the diesel and sitting unused, it's no threat at that stage; using the engine does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is simply the wrong one. Since it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Crystals and corrosion stay after the next tankful, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, and so watering it can't work. That is why the flush matters more, and trying the engine "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Eastgate or the centre of Woodston equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever in Cambridgeshire the vehicle has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the reservoir: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
Woodston: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many cars put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and in dim light the two can look the same. No one intends it. A container bought when driving home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the filling station, is the usual route.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. The top-up is rushed outside Brewster Avenue Infant School, because the dash lit up with a warning as the kids were dropped in. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive close to Westbrook Park Road. Or someone new to that flap tops up your vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park outside Coalheavers Arms.
Rented vehicles, brand-new motors, fleet motors, or the second car in a family with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it the most. Keep it switched off: that is the first step to an identical slip, anywhere around Woodston or the remainder of Cambridgeshire you are.
Woodston: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Given any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, after passing through your filter and lines.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Wildlife Haven, say, or midway across Woodston. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the A1(M), under 3 miles from Woodston, the next junction is where to exit, and anywhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That's why a hop across Woodston to park beside St Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church and a drive of under a mile towards Peterborough are such different jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our engineers do all of the rinsing where your car has come to a stop, and once the engine has run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very uncommon when it's caught quickly.
Woodston: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest in Woodston — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a street beside Woodston Library — the van comes to the vehicle. The work depends on three answers, which our technicians ask for first — which fluid went in, the amount, and whether your engine has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together after that tank is emptied, right there. A careful flush matters much more with AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains will not clear away by itself. Clean diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs when the motor has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Last, the system is primed with new diesel. At that point our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay at Peterborough or a drive around Woodston. Before leaving, our engineers check it is running properly with fresh diesel in. No garage is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Woodston and where it is
Woodston is a suburban area located near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, sitting at an elevation of around 13 metres in the eastern part of England. Woodston forms part of the wider Peterborough urban area, with nearby places including New Fletton, Old Fletton, and Orton Longueville. Woodston has a population of approximately 8541 residents, predominantly living in terraced housing.
AdBlue drains across Woodston and Cambridgeshire
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Woodston also cover the locations around it, New Fletton, Old Fletton and Orton Longueville among them, and most of Cambridgeshire beyond, across the PE postcode area. Guessing doesn't help by a county line or somewhere tricky to describe; ring and check.
Woodston is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
Woodston: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
There's no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Southside Methodist Chapel.
That's why every call from Woodston starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Their answers shrink the range down to a single number.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. While our engineer is on the way, check your policy: many cover misfuelling.
In Woodston and still alongside the car?
Then, do nothing — that is the best move available. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Woodston or anywhere within Cambridgeshire.