AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Brewood? Keep It Switched Off
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you begin if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Being water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only starts once the pump starts drawing it. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly flushed where your car sits around Brewood. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Brewood: the first few minutes
To do:
- Keys out — that way no one can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting ST19 9, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Shifting your vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Even a short distance up Bargate Street is too far to drive it.
- Beside the road, don't attempt emptying it yourself.
The staff on duty at any Brewood forecourt — the Shell among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. On your own driveway, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. No part inside a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and no part of that was meant to go that way.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is just where AdBlue settles: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. When your system runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Crateford yesterday and not started remains the simple case, provided nobody touches your key.
Once it's pulled in, the harm takes two forms. It attacks certain metals found in fuel components, attacking any part it touches till it is removed from your system. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and settle in tiny channels. A car left sitting around Brewood with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, which is a second kind of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
Petrol pumped into a diesel on BP's forecourt makes the fuel watery — that is the whole problem. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside that tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Whether the vehicle is in Kiddemore Green or the centre of Brewood, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, and so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the following fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits just inside the tank, the simplest section of the whole system to empty, wherever the vehicle has stopped around Staffordshire.
Brewood: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many motors put the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel cap, now and then behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can look identical. No one intends it. Usually it's never the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle heading home and tips it in at home.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside St Mary and St Chad CofE First School the refill is rushed. After work, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Stafford Street. Another pattern: dim light, the car park by The Lion Hotel, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company motor, or the spare vehicle of a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people know least. Keep it switched off: that's the first response to an identical slip, anywhere in Brewood or the rest of Staffordshire you happen to be.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Brewood?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Via the fuel filter, through the lines, and — with any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that is how far it travels.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from The Sandbeds or halfway across Brewood. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Brewood lies under 3 miles from the M54; if you were on it, leave by the first junction and pull up safely instead of driving on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading for Wolverhampton, under 10 miles away, makes a much bigger job than hopping across Brewood to the car park by St Mary and St Chad. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the motor has run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. If it is noticed quickly, long-term damage is very rare.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Brewood?
A street by St Mary's Catholic Church, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest around Brewood, our technicians come to it. The job depends on three answers, which our technicians get before all else — which fluid was put in, the amount, and if your engine has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when the tank is emptied, on the spot. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. After that, the filter: flushed, or replaced if it has to be. After that fresh diesel, then a test of your car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, if the motor hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
Bleeding your system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, by Codsall or on a driveway in Brewood. The test before we leave is that it runs properly on new diesel. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done then and there. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Brewood
Brewood is a village in southern Staffordshire, situated on the River Penk and characterised by its semi-detached housing stock. Brewood sits at an elevation of around 112 metres, near the outskirts of Wolverhampton and within commuting distance of the West Midlands conurbation. Brewood is close to smaller settlements like Shutt Green and Horsebrook, and is part of a network of rural communities along the river valleys of Staffordshire. Brewood has a population of approximately 2155 residents, living in a mix of old and new buildings.
AdBlue drains across Brewood and Staffordshire
AdBlue call-outs in Brewood are passed to vans that serve the towns around it — Shutt Green, Horsebrook plus Somerford — and most of Staffordshire further out, throughout ST postcodes. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No towing is needed. In Brewood, a village, a mobile service fits: the car is drained on the spot, whether on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Brewood: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. Three things shift the cost: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight spot behind Stretton Mill Roman Fort.
That is why each call from Brewood starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it's run. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Before anyone sets off, you hear our price on the phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: plenty include misfuelling.
Still alongside the car around Brewood?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step there is. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest across Staffordshire, Brewood included.