AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Lawley? Keep It Switched Off
Motor off, ignition off: that is where you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm begins once it's pulled through the lines — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Lawley, is normally what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the engine has been run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Lawley, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
Do these:
- Remove the keys, and that prevents someone turning the electrics on.
- If you are anywhere near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and about how much, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting TF4 2, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift your vehicle.
- Your ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance up Village Drive.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
At a forecourt in Lawley, whether it is the Tesco or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll your car clear of the petrol pump. If you are on your own drive, leave the car precisely where it stands.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed directly to your exhaust, cleaning what the engine emits. Nothing in a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and none of it was intended to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Dawley Bank yesterday and never switched on remains the straightforward case, provided no one touches your key.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in tiny channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's cleared out. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean harm overnight for a car parked in Lawley. Only in the tank, it stays the same. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and your injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is often worse than petrol
A fault of thinned fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Esso. Harm only comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside your tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, so it can't simply be run through. Whether the car sits in Spring Village or the heart of Lawley, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush matters more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, and so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the next fill.
As with petrol, there is good news. Wherever across Shropshire the vehicle has stopped, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Lawley
It's not on purpose. Many cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Lawley Primary School and Nursery, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Little House Drive. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Grazing Cow, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it off: that's the first step to the same mistake, wherever around Lawley or the rest of Shropshire you happen to be.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Lawley?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been drawn through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Horsehay Village Golf Centre or halfway across Lawley. No restarting to test: pull over once safe, then turn it off. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
Exit the M54, under a mile from Lawley, by the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than carrying on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Lawley to the car park by St John the Evangelist is a very different job from a run towards Wolverhampton, under 25 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to rinse out once the motor has run, and our engineers do all of it where your car has come to a stop. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it is noticed early.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Lawley?
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Lawley: a side street near The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers decide the work, so first our technicians ask which fluid went in, about the amount, and if your motor has turned over.
Then your tank is emptied where the vehicle waits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or changed if it must be. Then fresh diesel, and then a test of the car. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs where your motor has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that is the final step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, by Wellington (Shropshire) or on a drive around Lawley. The test before our technicians leave is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Lawley itself
Lawley is a suburban area in Shropshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 185 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Lawley lies approximately 16 miles west of Wolverhampton and is surrounded by nearby places such as New Works, Lawley Bank, and Lawley Common. Lawley has a population of around 3321 residents and is located about 129 miles northwest of London. Lawley forms part of the wider West Midlands region, with its residents having access to local amenities and services.
Lawley and Shropshire: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue call-outs in Lawley go to vans that cover the places near it — New Works, Lawley Bank plus Lawley Common — and much of Shropshire further out, across TF postcodes. Guessing doesn't help by a county line or anywhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Lawley is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Lawley?
Since each callouts vary, a single price wouldn't be honest. What shifts the price is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Second Lieutenant Clifford Wallace Jenson USAAF.
That is why each call from Lawley starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. Those replies shrink a range down to a single figure.
Quoted by phone before the engineer heads out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
In Lawley and still alongside your car?
Not touching your car is, then, the best thing you can do. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Lawley or anywhere around Shropshire.