Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Friar Park
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the system draws it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Friar Park, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before the engine has run. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Friar Park: the first few minutes
To do:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, pull your keys away.
- Near moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting WS10 0, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Shifting your car just a short way is no reason to fire up your engine.
- Many diesels run their pump the moment your ignition comes on, and so keep the car off.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance along Friar Park Road.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it on your own.
Get the people behind the counter to help you move the car off the pumps if you are on a forecourt around Friar Park, whether it's the BP or somewhere else. At home, your car stays exactly as it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Stored in a separate tank, it is injected into the exhaust to clean the gases. Nothing inside a fuel pump is designed for this fluid — and none of that was intended to go that way.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It drops, because it is denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake draws its fuel from. When the pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it sits beneath your diesel, which is how a car topped up in The Woods yesterday and not started stays the simple case, provided nobody touches your key.
Once it's drawn in, the damage takes two forms. It eats at some metals used in fuel systems, working on any part it reaches till it is cleared completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in narrow channels. A motor left standing in Friar Park with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water lubricates nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel flowing through them, and so the water content damages them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. Harm only comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it does none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is plainly the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, since it does not burn. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits back out — and the following tankful will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning your key "to see", in the centre of Friar Park or out in Bescot, does more harm than almost any other slip.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in West Midlands your car is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Friar Park
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside The Priory Primary School. After work, a bottle is tipped in on a drive close to Manifold Way. Or a driver new to that flap tops up your car after dark, stopped in the car park outside The Brunswick.
Hired motors, brand-new vehicles, fleet cars, or the spare vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar cars get it most. Wherever you're in Friar Park or the rest of West Midlands, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Friar Park: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Via the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any may show up, maybe midway across Friar Park or coming back from Black Country Millennium Forest. No restarting to check: pull over once it is safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M5, under a mile from Friar Park, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system, so driving towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, gives a much bigger job than hopping across Friar Park to the car park by St Francis of Assisii. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
Friar Park: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A road by Pulse Soccer & Fitness, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has stopped in Friar Park, our engineers travel to it. Before anything else we ask what got in, about how much, and whether your motor has run, since those replies determine the work.
Next, draining the tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. What remains from AdBlue won't wash away unaided, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. A test of your car comes last, once fresh diesel is added and your filter gets cleaned or, where needed, replaced. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour on site for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Last, the system is primed with new diesel. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway in Friar Park or in a bay at Tame Bridge Parkway. We make sure it runs correctly on clean diesel before we go. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — both yours once the job is done.
About Friar Park and where it is
Friar Park is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Rea and close to the city of Birmingham. Friar Park has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterized by terraced homes. Friar Park is located near several other local areas, including Stone Cross, Hall Green, and The Delves, and is about 6 miles from Birmingham city centre. Friar Park sits at an elevation of around 117 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Friar Park included
AdBlue call-outs in Friar Park go to vans that serve the places around it — Stone Cross, Hall Green as well as The Delves — and most of West Midlands beyond, across WS postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down? Asking is better than guessing, so phone.
No towing is needed. In Friar Park, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: the vehicle is drained on the spot, whether on a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Friar Park: the cost of fixing it
Since the callouts vary, a single figure wouldn't be honest. The cost moves first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it depends on where the car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind Holy Cross Catholic Church.
That is why each call from Friar Park starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it's run. Those replies shrink the range down to a single figure.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Friar Park: still beside your car?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Friar Park or anywhere within West Midlands, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran.