Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Birmingham
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just starts once the pump begins drawing it. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully purged where your car stands around Birmingham. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Birmingham: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting B1 1, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Turning your key to ignition alone sets your pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't blend, so it is pointless.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance down Hill Street.
- Emptying the tank on your own by the road is not worth trying.
At a forecourt around Birmingham, whether it is the Esso or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the pump. On the drive, your car remains just where it was left.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays apart rather than mixing — quite different from fuel. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Brookfields last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. What remains once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it's flushed out. A motor left standing in Birmingham with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers none of that, and that is a second form of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the Shell, and this issue is diluted fuel. No harm is done while it sits put, blended into your diesel — only once your motor works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits back out — and the next fill will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Birmingham or out in New Town Row, costs more than nearly any other slip.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If your motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around West Midlands the car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Birmingham
It's not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside St Catherine of Siena Catholic Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills your car. Near New Street, someone tips a bottle in on that drive after work. One more pattern: darkness, the car park outside Fox and Chance, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It takes place most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it off: that is the first response to an identical slip, wherever in Birmingham or the rest of West Midlands you are.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Birmingham?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. Given any running, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and pipework.
Perhaps coming back from Cathedral Square, or part way across Birmingham, your engine may run lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Birmingham lies under a mile from the Aston Expressway; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and pull up safely instead of carrying on.
Hopping across Birmingham to the car park by Iron:Man is one thing; driving towards Wolverhampton, under 15 miles away, is something else, because every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to rinse out once the engine has been run, and our technicians do all of it where your car has stopped. When it is spotted early, lasting damage is very uncommon.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel around Birmingham: what it takes
Wherever it has come to rest in Birmingham — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside Queen Victoria — our van comes to your vehicle. The work rests on three answers, and our engineers get first — what got in, the quantity, and if your motor has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one when that tank is emptied, on the spot. A full flush counts much more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what remains will not wash out by itself. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers arrive, provided the engine hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that is the final step. You set off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway around Birmingham or in a space outside Birmingham New Street. The check before we leave is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. No garage is needed at any point, with the whole job done on the spot. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Birmingham, briefly
Birmingham is a major city located in the West Midlands region of England, situated on the River Rea and River Tame. Birmingham sits at an elevation of around 146 metres, approximately 101 miles northwest of London. Birmingham is a densely populated urban area, with a mix of residential and commercial districts, including areas like Lee Bank, Ladywood, and Digbeth. Birmingham has a predominantly flat-based housing stock, reflecting its urban character.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Birmingham included
AdBlue call-outs in Birmingham are passed to vans that cover the places around it — Lee Bank, Ladywood plus Digbeth — and much of West Midlands further out, across B postcodes. Close to a border, or anywhere awkward to explain? Asking beats assuming, so ring.
Birmingham is a city, and a mobile drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Birmingham?
There's no fair single quote, because the jobs are not the same. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, because an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight spot behind The Guardian.
What got in, what quantity, plus whether the engine ran: each Birmingham call opens with precisely that, before a quote, never after. Those replies shrink a range down to a single figure.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
Still next to the car around Birmingham?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Birmingham or anywhere across West Midlands.