Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Birdwell
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep the engine off and leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm begins once it is pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it won't combine with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly cleaned where the vehicle stands in Birdwell. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Birdwell: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take your keys away.
- Put the hazards on if you're anywhere close to moving traffic.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much volume? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our technicians will know.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting S70 5, or just the name of a street close by, so phone from the spot.
Never:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the vehicle: the motor remains off.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it is wasted.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Hay Green Lane.
- Emptying the tank on your own by the road is not worth trying.
Moving the vehicle away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Birdwell forecourt you're on, the Texaco or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing inside a fuel pump is made for this fluid — and none of that was intended to go that way.
It does not blend. Once it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle filled in Upper Hoyland last night and not started stays the simple one, provided nobody turns the key.
Two kinds of harm follow 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 working on the parts it reaches for as long as it remains there. Lines carrying AdBlue mean damage by morning for a car parked in Birdwell. Just in your tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel running past them, so the water part damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a fault of thin fuel. No harm is done while it stays unused, mixed into your diesel — only when the motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It cannot simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the car is in Hoyland Common or the centre of Birdwell, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other mistake, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and that tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around South Yorkshire the vehicle is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Birdwell: how it ends up there
It is not on purpose. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is easy in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill is rushed outside Birdwell Primary School, after the dash flashed with a warning as the kids were taken off. A driver pours the container in outside their house, just off Sheffield Road, as the day ends. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside Travellers Inn, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. An identical slip, an identical first step — keep it switched off — wherever you are in Birdwell or the rest of South Yorkshire.
Birdwell: started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Via the fuel filter, along the lines, and — given any running — on to the high-pressure pump and every injector: that's how far it travels.
Expect rough running, smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Hay Green Plantation, say, or part way across Birdwell. When safe, pull over then turn it off — with no restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M1, under a mile from Birdwell, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
A quick hop across Birdwell to the car park by Birdwell Venue is one matter; heading towards Sheffield, under 10 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been run. If it is spotted soon, lasting damage is very rare.
Birdwell: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a road beside Birdwell Community Centre, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt around Birdwell, and our van travels to it. Three answers shape the work, so before anything else our engineers ask what was put in, roughly the amount, plus whether your engine has turned over.
Next, emptying your tank right there takes out the contaminated diesel and the AdBlue together. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than with petrol, because residue will not wash away on its own. Fresh diesel goes in after your filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs when the engine hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Starting the car comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, by Elsecar or on a driveway in Birdwell. It's tested on fresh diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our technicians head off. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Birdwell, briefly
Birdwell is a village in South Yorkshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of around 135 metres, approximately 8.7 miles from Sheffield. Birdwell has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterised by terraced homes. Birdwell is located near several other small villages, including Pilley, Worsbrough Village, and Tankersley, and is about 149.5 miles north of London.
Birdwell and South Yorkshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Our vans that answer AdBlue call-outs in Birdwell also cover the locations about it, Pilley, Worsbrough Village and Tankersley among them, and most of South Yorkshire beyond, across the S postcode area. Phone and check instead of guessing if you're close to a county line, or somewhere tricky to pin down.
Birdwell is a village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it is, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Birdwell?
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. Three things change the cost: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether a van can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight spot behind The Academy Theatre.
For that in mind, every enquiry from Birdwell begins with the identical trio — which fluid got in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before any figure. With those replies, the range shrinks to a single fixed figure.
Before a van heads out, you hear our price on the phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
In Birdwell and still alongside the vehicle?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Birdwell or wherever within South Yorkshire.