AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Wrangle? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the engine off and keep your ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does begins when the fuel system pulls it in. Caught before the motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Wrangle. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Wrangle: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Take your keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Which product, and about how much quantity? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting PE22 9, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Moving the car just a few yards is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Turning your key to ignition alone starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance down Common Road.
- Beside the road, don't try emptying it on your own.
At a forecourt in Wrangle, whether it's the the nearest petrol station or another one, ask the staff to help you push your car clear of the petrol pump. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it remains just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It doesn't combine. Once it is poured into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. It sinks, since it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its supply from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle filled in Leake Fold Hill yesterday and not started remains the straightforward case, as long as nobody turns the key.
From there it causes two kinds of damage. 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 labouring on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. A vehicle left standing around Wrangle with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing past them, so the water content damages them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Fill a diesel with petrol in error over at the another forecourt nearby, and this issue is thinned fuel. No damage comes as long as it sits put, mixed into your diesel — only when your engine runs on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Whether your vehicle sits in Leake Hurns End or the centre of Wrangle, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't remain mixed, and so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without start-up, the AdBlue stays in there — anywhere in Lincolnshire the vehicle has stopped.
Wrangle: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of vehicles put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two can look the same. Nobody intends it. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Wrangle Primary Academy. Near Church End, someone tips a bottle in on the drive after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Angel Inn, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
Rented cars, new motors, fleet cars, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least known cars get it most. An identical slip, same first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you happen to be around Wrangle or the rest of Lincolnshire.
Wrangle: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Via the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — with any running time — on to the injection pump and each injector: that is where it has gone.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may appear, perhaps midway across Wrangle or coming back from Wrangle Recreation Ground. No starting it again to check: stop when it is safe, then switch it off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Exit the A1(M), under 50 miles from Wrangle, by the first junction and park safely, not carrying on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, so heading for Lincoln, under 50 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Wrangle to the car park by Wrangle Parish Hall. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out after the motor has been started. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is noticed quickly.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Wrangle
The vehicle remains put, whether that's a street beside St. Mary & St. Nicholas, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Wrangle, and our van travels to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has been run, because those answers decide the work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one after the tank is emptied, right there. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because residue will not wash out unaided. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. If the engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that is the last step. Whether it's a parking space by Wainfleet or a drive in Wrangle, that is where our engineers start the engine and you set off. Before leaving, our technicians make sure it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Wrangle
Wrangle is a small village in eastern Lincolnshire, situated near the coast at a low elevation of around 6 metres. Wrangle lies within a short distance of several nearby places, including Wrangle Low Ground and Wrangle Lowgate. Wrangle has a population of approximately 622 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains in Wrangle and across Lincolnshire
Wrangle Low Ground, Wrangle Lowgate and Old Leake are among the towns near Wrangle that the same vans reach, together with most of Lincolnshire further out, throughout the PE postcode area. Close to a boundary, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Wherever the vehicle stands — your driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Wrangle, a coastal village, well.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Wrangle: the cost of fixing it
Each job is different, so not one single price would be fair. The price moves first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Wrangle Hall.
Before a quote, not afterwards, each call from Wrangle opens with the same three checks: the liquid, the quantity, plus whether the engine ran. Given them, the range narrows to one firm number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Next to the vehicle around Wrangle, still?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best move you can do. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Wrangle or anywhere within Lincolnshire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.