AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Freezeland? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep the engine off and keep your ignition off. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just comes when the pump starts drawing it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Freezeland, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your motor has been run. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Freezeland: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, take the keys out.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, and so do not throw it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting WV14 0, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Moving your vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up your motor.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Albany Crescent.
- Draining your tank on your own beside the road is not one to try.
The staff working at any Freezeland filling station — the Esso among them — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. No part inside a fuel pump is made for this liquid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the very place the pickup sucks from. A motor topped up on a drive in Green Lanes yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though once the motor runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
Once it's pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, attacking any part it touches until it is removed completely. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. A car left standing around Freezeland with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
A problem of thinned fuel is what you end up with after filling a diesel with petrol at the Shell. Harm just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside the tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the following fill will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Freezeland or out in Stow Heath, does more harm than almost any other mistake.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across West Midlands the vehicle is standing.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Freezeland?
Many motors place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two may look the same. Nobody intends it. It mostly occurs outside the house, from a container bought on the journey home, rather than at the filling station.
It tends to occur in a few familiar ways. The refill gets hurried outside Bilston Church of England Primary School, after the dash flashed with a warning while the kids were taken in. Someone tips the bottle in at home, right off Merstone Close, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Angel Inn, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new car, a fleet car, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuels — the vehicles people use least. An identical slip, an identical first response — keep it off — wherever you are in Freezeland or the rest of West Midlands.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Freezeland?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been drawn through your filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Black Country Millennium Forest, perhaps, or midway across Freezeland. Stop when safe. Switch off. Leave the car off rather than testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M6, under 5 miles from Freezeland, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Mileage counts: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, so driving for Wolverhampton, under 3 miles away, gives a far larger job than hopping across Freezeland to the car park by Three Columns. Let us know about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the motor has been started. When it is spotted soon, lasting damage is very uncommon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Freezeland?
A road by Ettingshall Village Community Activities Partnership Centre, a drive, a layby or a filling station: anywhere your vehicle has stopped in Freezeland, our technicians come to it. Three answers decide the job, so before anything else our technicians ask which fluid went in, about what quantity, plus whether your engine has run.
Next, draining your tank right there takes out the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. A full flush counts far more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue will not wash away on its own. After that, the filter: flushed, or replaced when it must be. Then clean diesel, then a test of your car. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the final step. Whether it is a parking space by Coseley or a driveway in Freezeland, that is where our engineers fire it up and you drive off. The test before our technicians head off is that it runs correctly on new diesel. Since the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Freezeland, briefly
Freezeland is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the city of Wolverhampton. Freezeland has a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities, with nearby areas including Millfields and Priestfield. Freezeland sits at an elevation of around 143 metres, with the city of Wolverhampton just 2 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Freezeland and West Midlands
Our vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Freezeland also cover the places about it, Millfields, Priestfield and Bilston among them, and most of West Midlands beyond, across the WV postcode area. Phone and ask rather than guess if you're close to a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down.
A mobile service suits Freezeland, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Freezeland: the cost of fixing it
Because the jobs differ, a single figure would not be fair. Three things move the cost: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one rests on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Alderman Herbert Beach JP 1874-1953.
Before a figure, never after, each enquiry from Freezeland begins with three questions: the fuel, the amount, and if the engine ran. The answers turn a range into a straight price.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Check your insurance while we're on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
In Freezeland and still next to your car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Freezeland or anywhere across West Midlands.