AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Gadlas? Keep It Switched Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, leave the motor off and keep your ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The trouble begins once it is pulled through your lines — it will not burn, and it won't blend with diesel. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully cleaned where your car sits in Gadlas. Before anything, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Gadlas
Things to do:
- Pocket the keys, and that stops anyone turning the electrics on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, so do not bin it away.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting SY12 9, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the moment the ignition comes on, so keep the car off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not thin it.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch down Eastwick Lane.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
The staff on duty at any Gadlas forecourt — the Texaco included — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. On your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. Stored in a dedicated tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It drops, because it's heavier than diesel, and pools low where the intake takes its supply from. A car topped up on a drive in Gravel Hole yesterday evening and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once your engine turns, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. What remains when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and block filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. By daybreak, a car parked in Gadlas with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; if it is just in the tank, it doesn't. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, and that is a second kind of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
A problem of thinned fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol at the BP. Harm only comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside your tank, it causes none.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is plainly the wrong one. It cannot simply be run through, since it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Knolton or the middle of Gadlas.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If the 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 around Shropshire the vehicle is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Gadlas
It is not on purpose. Plenty of cars have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Mostly it's never the forecourt: someone picks up a container driving home and pours it in outside the house.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Criftins CofE Primary School and Nursery the top-up is rushed. Near Grapes Lane, a driver tips a bottle in at home after work. Another pattern: dim light, the car park outside The Trotting Mare, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a brand-new motor, a company vehicle, or the other vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people use least. Keep it off: that is the first response to an identical slip, anywhere around Gadlas or the rest of Shropshire you happen to be.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Gadlas?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been pulled through the filter and the fuel lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, falling power, lights on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Groves Wood, perhaps, or part way across Gadlas. When you safely can, stop then turn it off — without restarting to see. Each start pulls more of that through.
Gadlas sits under 25 miles from the M53; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop safely rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Gadlas to the car park by Criftins Parish Hall is a very different job from a run towards Wrexham, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
We do all of the cleaning where your car has come to a stop, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage if it is noticed quickly.
Gadlas: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The car stays where it is, whether that's a street near St Matthew, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station in Gadlas, and our van travels to it. Before anything else we ask what was put in, about how much, and if your engine has run, since those replies determine this work.
Next, draining the tank right there takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through because residue will not flush out unaided. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. After that clean diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when the engine hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Last, the system is primed with fresh diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, at Gobowen or on a drive around Gadlas. It's checked on fresh diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our technicians head off. No workshop is required at any point, with the whole job done on the spot. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Gadlas and where it is
Gadlas is a small suburban area in Shropshire, situated inland at an elevation of 103 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Gadlas is located near the Welsh border, close to nearby places such as Dudleston Heath and Dudleston Grove. Gadlas sits approximately 8.5 miles from Wrexham, the nearest city, and is about 154 miles northwest of London. Gadlas has a population of around 535 residents.
Gadlas and Shropshire: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs around Gadlas are passed to vans that serve the towns around it — Dudleston Heath, Dudleston Grove plus Greenhill Bank — and much of Shropshire further out, throughout SY postcodes. Guessing won't help by a county line or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
A mobile service fits Gadlas, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring the vehicle to us, since our engineers empty it there, in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Gadlas: the cost of fixing it
Since each jobs differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of the car, since an open driveway is easier for a van to reach safely than a tight space behind St Mary the Virgin.
For that reason, each enquiry from Gadlas begins by asking the identical trio — which fluid went in, how much, whether it ran — before a quote. When they are known, a range turns into a single fixed number.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Gadlas: still beside the vehicle?
In that case, do nothing — that's the best step there is. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether the engine ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Shropshire, Gadlas included.