Wool: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm happens till the motor sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Wool, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wool: the first few minutes
Do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- The van finds you quickest with a postcode starting BH20 6, or simply the name of a street nearby, so call from the spot.
Don't:
- No starting your engine — not for a second, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Keep it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Bindon Way.
- Don't try to drain it yourself at the roadside.
Get the people behind the counter to help you move your car away from the island if you are at a forecourt in Wool, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or elsewhere. If you're on your own drive, leave it precisely where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in an injection pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was meant to travel that way.
It does not blend. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it sits beneath your diesel, and that is why a vehicle filled in Stokeford yesterday and never switched on stays the straightforward case, as long as no one touches the key.
Two kinds of harm come from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; meanwhile, because it attacks some metals, every part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it remains in there. By daybreak, a car parked in Wool with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it is only in the tank, it doesn't. And there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that rely on it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger fault?
Petrol put into a diesel on Murco's forecourt makes the fuel thin — that is the whole issue. No harm is done while it stays unused, mixed into the diesel — only when the engine works on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Coombe Keynes or the middle of Wool.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just in your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere the vehicle has stopped in Dorset.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Wool?
It's not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it is never the filling station: someone buys a bottle driving home and pours it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside Wool Church of England Primary School. A driver pours the container in outside their house, right off High Street, as the day ends. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap refills your car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside The Black Bear.
Rented vehicles, new vehicles, company motors, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles see it most. An identical mistake, same first step — keep it off — wherever you happen to be around Wool or the remainder of Dorset.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Wool?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and pipework have had it sucked along, and some running takes it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Maybe coming back from East Burton Village Green, or part way across Wool, the engine may go lumpy, smoke, drop pace, flash your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Every start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M27, under 50 miles from Wool, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, and so driving for Salisbury, under 50 miles away, gives a far larger job than hopping across Wool to the car park by Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the motor has been run. When it's noticed early, long-term damage is very rare.
Wool: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
A street beside Wool Methodist Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has stopped around Wool, our technicians come to it. The job rests on three replies, which our engineers get first — which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if your engine has run.
Then that tank is cleared where the vehicle stands, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since what remains will not wash away unaided. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. Engine not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on fresh diesel. After that our engineers start the car and you head off, whether from a parking bay at the nearest station or a drive around Wool. Before leaving, we check it is running correctly with new diesel in. No garage is needed at any stage, with the whole job done then and there. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About Wool and where it is
Wool is a village in Dorset, situated on the banks of the River Frome at an elevation of 19 metres. Wool sits near the villages of Braytown and East Burton, and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Wool is located in the South West region of England, approximately 107 miles from London and 33 miles from Salisbury.
AdBlue drains across Dorset, Wool included
Braytown, Giddy Green and East Burton are among the places around Wool that the same vans reach, along with most of Dorset further out, throughout the BH postcode area. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
Wool is a village, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Wool: the cost of fixing it
Because each jobs vary, a flat price would not be fair. What changes the price is, firstly, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind The Church of the Holy Rood.
What went in, what quantity, plus if it ran: every Wool enquiry opens by asking exactly those, ahead of a quote, never afterwards. Those answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Before a van sets off, you hear the price by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still alongside the vehicle in Wool?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to your car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and if it ran is all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Dorset, Wool included.