Lapal: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your motor off and keep the ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The trouble begins once it's pulled through your pump — it will not burn, and it will not blend with diesel. In Lapal, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Lapal: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Pull the keys out, and so nobody switches your ignition 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, so do not bin it away.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting B62 0, or just the name of a street close by, and so call from the spot.
Never do these:
- Shifting your vehicle even a short way is no reason to start your motor.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the instant your ignition goes on, and so leave the car off.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, so it's pointless.
- Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way down Spies Lane.
- Beside the road, do not try emptying it yourself.
The staff working at any Lapal filling station — the Shell included — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. Parked on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. From a separate tank it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. Nothing inside an injection pump is made for this fluid — and no part of it was meant to travel through one.
It doesn't blend. After it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. It drops, since it is denser than diesel, and pools low where the pickup draws its supply from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Ridgacre overnight and not started since is the simple one. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — though once your engine turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
Once it's sucked in, the harm comes in two forms. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; and, because it eats at certain metals, every part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains inside. A car left sitting in Lapal with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Then there's the water: it brings no protection to the components that rely on it most — the high-pressure pump and every injector.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is frequently worse than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Harvest Fuel Station's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that is the main issue. Damage just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is an issue of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Coombeswood or the middle of Lapal.
As with petrol, there is good news. Emptying a tank is the simplest part on a fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever around West Midlands the vehicle sits.
Lapal: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not deliberate. Many cars keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, now and then under one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. It mostly occurs at home, from a container grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. The refill gets rushed outside Lapal Primary School, after the dash lit up with a warning while the children were taken in. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway close to Kent Road. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside The Royal Oak, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
Hired motors, new motors, fleet vehicles, or the spare vehicle in a home with one of each: the least familiar vehicles get it most. Wherever you are around Lapal or the rest of West Midlands, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Lapal?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. It's been drawn through your filter and the fuel lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Expect rough running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from Black Country Millennium Forest, say, or midway across Lapal. Pull over when it is safe. Switch off. Leave it off rather than restarting it to check. More of it is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M5, under a mile from Lapal, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That's why crossing Lapal to park beside St Peter's and a drive of under 10 miles towards Birmingham are very distinct jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
Once the motor has run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where your car has come to a stop. Spotted early, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Lapal?
A road by Leasowe Sports Centre, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has come to rest in Lapal, our engineers come to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if your engine has been run, because those answers settle this work.
Then the tank is emptied where the vehicle sits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters much more after AdBlue than with petrol, because what remains will not clear out by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes at the end. You head off as soon as our technicians have started the car, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway in Lapal or in a space outside Rowley Regis. It's tested on fresh diesel to confirm it runs properly before our engineers go. As the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a garage never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About Lapal itself
Lapal is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated approximately 5 miles southwest of Birmingham city centre. Lapal occupies a relatively high elevation of around 200 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Lapal is close to nearby places such as Woodgate, Hill and Cakemore, and Hurst Green, and is about 104 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains around Lapal and across West Midlands
Throughout the B postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in Lapal reach most of West Midlands as well, Woodgate, Hill and Cakemore and Hurst Green among them. Guessing won't help close to a border or anywhere tricky to pin down; phone and ask.
No towing is needed. In Lapal, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: your vehicle is drained where it stands, be it in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Lapal
There is no fair single price, because the jobs are not the same. Whether your engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of your car, since an open driveway is easier for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind Carters Lane Baptist Church.
With that in mind, every enquiry from Lapal opens by asking the identical trio — what was put in, what quantity, if it ran — ahead of a figure. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
You get that price by phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Still alongside the vehicle in Lapal?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the best step available. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Lapal or anywhere in West Midlands.