AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bilbrook? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing starts till your engine sucks it through. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Bilbrook. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Bilbrook: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents anyone switching the power on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting WV8 1, or simply the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the car.
Not to do:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short stretch up Duck Lane is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Emptying that tank on your own by the road is not one to try.
Rolling the vehicle away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Bilbrook forecourt you're on, the Esso or any other. On that drive, your car stays exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. Stored in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust to treat the gases. A fuel pump is not made to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate instead of mixing — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the same place the pickup sucks from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is how a car topped up in Codsall yesterday and not switched on remains the straightforward one, provided nobody touches the key.
It causes two kinds of damage 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, so it keeps running on the components it gets to for as long as it remains there. By daybreak, a vehicle sitting in Bilbrook with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it's only inside the tank, nothing changes. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water offers none of that, which is a second kind of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake at the BP, and the problem is thinned fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is in your tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, and 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 matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Palmers Cross or the middle of Bilbrook.
As with petrol, there's good news. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Staffordshire your car is standing.
Bilbrook: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many cars place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap, and after dark the two can look identical. No one means it. A container picked up while heading home and poured in outside the house, rather than at the forecourt, is the typical story.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Lane Green First School the refill is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Lane Green Road. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up your car after dark, parked in the car park by The Woodman.
Rented cars, new motors, fleet vehicles, or the second vehicle in a home with one of each: the least familiar cars see it most. Same slip, same first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you are around Bilbrook or the rest of Staffordshire.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bilbrook?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. It has been pulled through the filter and the fuel lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Joey's Lane Playing Fields, or midway across Bilbrook, the engine might run rough, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or cut out. No restarting to test: pull over when safe, then switch it off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Bilbrook lies under 3 miles from the M54; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up safely instead of driving on.
Hopping across Bilbrook to the car park by Church of the Holy Cross is one matter; driving towards Wolverhampton, under 5 miles away, is something else, since every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the motor has been run. Caught quickly, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Bilbrook?
The vehicle remains where it is, whether that is a street beside Codsall Leisure Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt around Bilbrook, and the van comes to it. Three answers shape the work, and so first our engineers ask which fluid went in, roughly the amount, plus if your motor has run.
On the spot, the tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because what remains will not wash out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Not run? In that case count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no issue, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Lastly, the fuel system is primed with clean diesel. After that our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space outside the nearest station or a drive in Bilbrook. The check before our engineers head off is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. No garage is required at any point, with the entire job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Bilbrook and where it is
Bilbrook is a village in Staffordshire, situated on the riverside near Wolverhampton, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Bilbrook sits at an elevation of around 118 metres, close to nearby places such as Lane Green and Gunstone. Bilbrook is located approximately 3.5 miles from Wolverhampton and around 116.5 miles from London. Bilbrook has a population of around 3488 people, living in a variety of housing types, predominantly semi-detached homes.
AdBlue drains around Bilbrook and across Staffordshire
Throughout the WV postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs around Bilbrook serve much of Staffordshire too, Lane Green, Dam Mill and Gunstone included. Phone and check instead of guessing when you are close to a border, or anywhere awkward to explain.
Bilbrook is a village, and a call-out 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 is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Bilbrook: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since the callouts vary, a single price wouldn't be fair. Three things change the price: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind St Christophers.
That is why each call from Bilbrook starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it has run. Given those replies, a range shrinks to one firm number.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
In Bilbrook and still alongside the car?
Then, touch nothing — that is the best step available. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Bilbrook or anywhere within Staffordshire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.