AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Daywall? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when your fuel system pulls it in. If the engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully rinsed where the vehicle stands around Daywall. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Daywall: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Take the keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- If you are anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, and so don't bin it out.
- Call right where you are. Say a SY10 7 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run your pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch along A5.
- Emptying the tank on your own beside the road is not worth trying.
At a forecourt around Daywall, whether it is the Shell or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. On that drive, the car stays exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a separate reservoir it is fed straight to the exhaust, treating what your motor lets out. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Rhewl overnight and left unstarted is the simple one. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once your engine turns, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
From there it does two kinds of damage. What is left when the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and block filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it's flushed out. By daybreak, a car parked around Daywall with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it is just in your tank, nothing changes. The water in it causes damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Petrol put into a diesel on BP's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that's the main fault. No damage is done as long as it sits put, blended into the diesel — only once your engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It cannot just be run through, since it does not burn. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Upper Hengoed or the middle of Daywall.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere across Shropshire your car has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the simplest bit of any fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Daywall: how it ends up there
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars rests right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it is never the filling station: someone picks up a container heading home and pours it in at home.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. Rushing, outside Gobowen Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone refills the car. Near Henry Robertson Drive, a driver pours a container in at home after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park at Cross Foxes, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
The least known vehicles see it the most — hire cars, new ones, company ones, and the spare car of a home with one of each fuel types. Wherever you're around Daywall or the remainder of Shropshire, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Daywall, and the engine started?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. The filter and lines have had it pulled through, and some running time carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Watch for rough running, exhaust smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Gobowen Playing Field, say, or midway across Daywall. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M53, under 25 miles from Daywall, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Daywall to the car park by All Saints is a very different job from a run towards Wrexham, under 15 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
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 running. Caught early, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
Daywall: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a road beside WW1 War Memorial, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station around Daywall, and the van travels to it. Three answers decide the job, and so first our technicians ask which fluid was put in, about the amount, and whether the motor has turned over.
Next, draining the tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. The fuel system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, if the motor hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with new diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, by Gobowen or on a drive in Daywall. Before we leave, our engineers make sure it's running correctly with clean diesel in. As the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Daywall, briefly
Daywall is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Shropshire, with a population of around 510 people. Daywall has a mix of semi-detached housing and is located near other local places such as Hengoed, Gobowen, and Preeshenlle. Daywall sits at an elevation of 125 metres, close to the Welsh border and within commuting distance of Wrexham, the nearest city. Daywall is part of the wider West Midlands region, approximately 156.5 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Daywall and Shropshire
The vans that answer AdBlue call-outs around Daywall also cover the spots round it, Hengoed, Gobowen and Preeshenlle among them, and most of Shropshire beyond, across the SY postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess when you are by a county line, or anywhere tricky to explain.
Wherever the car stands — a driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — our engineers drain it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; which suits Daywall, a rural hamlet, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Daywall?
Not one flat price could be fair, since each job differs. Three things change the cost: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight spot behind The Holroyd Community Theatre.
That is why every call from Daywall starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You hear that price by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is on the way, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Still beside the car around Daywall?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, in Daywall or wherever within Shropshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.