AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Hill Ridware? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your motor off and leave your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Being water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; damage only starts when your pump begins drawing it. In Hill Ridware, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the car is. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do straight away, Hill Ridware: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, and so do not bin it out.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting WS15 3, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Not to do:
- No starting the engine — not for a second, not to reposition your vehicle.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it's wasted.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way along School Lane.
- By the road, don't attempt emptying it on your own.
Moving your car off the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Hill Ridware forecourt you are on, the Esso included. If you are on your own drive, leave the car exactly where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. A fuel pump isn't made to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, once poured in, will not. Its behaviour is not at all like diesel's. It drops, since it's heavier than diesel, and pools down where the pickup draws its fuel from. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Armitage yesterday and never switched on stays the straightforward case, provided no one turns the key.
Two kinds of harm come from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a car sitting in Hill Ridware with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; where it is just inside your tank, nothing changes. And there is the water: it brings no lubrication to the parts that rely on it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger problem?
Fill a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Tesco, and the issue is thinned fuel. Harm just comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting inside the tank, it does nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable liquid. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, because it separates back out — and the next fill won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Hill Ridware or out in Handsacre, does more harm than almost any other slip.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If your motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Staffordshire the vehicle is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Hill Ridware: how it ends up there
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. A container bought when heading home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the usual route.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside Henry Chadwick Primary School. In the evening, a container goes in on a driveway near Chadwick Crescent. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at Chadwick Arms, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a brand-new motor, a fleet car, or the spare vehicle of a family with both fuels — the cars people use least. Anywhere across Staffordshire, Hill Ridware as well, the mistake does not change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
Already started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Hill Ridware?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via your filter, through the lines, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is how far it travels.
Perhaps coming back from Cawarden Springs Wood, or part way across Hill Ridware, the engine may run lumpy, smoke, lose power, flash the dash or stall. Once you safely can, pull over and switch everything off — with no restarting to see. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Hill Ridware lies under 10 miles from the M6 Toll; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That's why a hop across Hill Ridware to park beside Mavesyn Ridware Village Hall and a drive of under 10 miles towards Lichfield are very different jobs. Let us know about how far it had come.
Once the motor has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. When it's noticed quickly, lasting damage is very uncommon.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Hill Ridware
The car stays put, whether that is a road beside Church of St Nicholas, Mavesyn Ridware, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station in Hill Ridware, and our van travels to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether the engine has run, because those replies decide the work.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through since what remains will not wash away by itself. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Engine not run? Then expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the street at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes at the end. You set off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Hill Ridware or in a bay by Rugeley Trent Valley. Before we leave, our technicians check it is running correctly with clean diesel in. No garage is needed at any stage, with the entire job done on the spot. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Hill Ridware, for a moment
Hill Ridware is a village in Staffordshire, situated near the city of Lichfield and close to the villages of Rake End, Mavesyn Ridware, and Pipe Ridware. Hill Ridware lies in a low-lying area at an elevation of around 72 metres, within the West Midlands region. Hill Ridware has a population of approximately 1012 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
AdBlue drains across Staffordshire, Hill Ridware included
The teams that answer AdBlue call-outs in Hill Ridware also cover the spots around it, Rake End, Mavesyn Ridware and Pipe Ridware among them, and most of Staffordshire beyond, across the WS postcode area. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than guessing.
A van that comes to you fits Hill Ridware, a rural village: there's no need to take your vehicle to us, because we empty it there, on a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Hill Ridware
Not one flat figure could be honest, because every job is different. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind St. John the Baptist Church.
Before any figure, never afterwards, every enquiry from Hill Ridware opens with the same three checks: the liquid, the quantity, plus if it ran. Given them, the range narrows to a single fixed number.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. While our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
Alongside the car around Hill Ridware, still?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Hill Ridware or anywhere around Staffordshire.