AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Little Inkberrow? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep your motor off — and your ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The harm begins once it's pulled through the pump — it will not ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully flushed where the vehicle stands around Little Inkberrow. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Little Inkberrow, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
To do:
- Pull the keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Ring just where you are. Say a WR7 4 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start your engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition comes on, so keep the vehicle off.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it is pointless.
- Keep it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up Withybed Lane.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it on your own.
Moving your vehicle off the island is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Little Inkberrow forecourt you're on, the Murco included. At your own driveway, don't touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust to treat the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
It doesn't combine. Once it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. It sinks, since it's heavier than diesel, and settles down where the pickup draws its supply from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Morton under Hill overnight and has not been started since. The liquid waits at the base of the tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through if your motor starts, ahead of any diesel at all.
It does two kinds of damage 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, so it keeps working on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. Lines carrying AdBlue mean harm overnight for a car sitting in Little Inkberrow. Only in your tank, it stays stable. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector depend on diesel flowing past them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
Petrol put into a diesel on Gulf's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that is the whole problem. Blended into the diesel and left still, it's harmless at that stage; using your engine does the harm.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates again — and the following tankful will not rinse away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Little Inkberrow or out in Dormston, does more harm than almost any other slip.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside your tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has stopped around Worcestershire.
Little Inkberrow: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not on purpose. Many cars have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. Mostly it is not the forecourt: a driver buys a container driving home and tips it in at home.
It tends to happen in a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Inkberrow Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone refills the car. Someone pours the container in outside their house, just off Ross Crescent, as the day ends. Or the car is topped up in the car park outside The Bull's Head, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it switched off: that is the first response to the same slip, anywhere around Little Inkberrow or the remainder of Worcestershire you are.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Little Inkberrow?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been pulled through the filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Maybe coming back from Inkberrow (Millennium Green), or midway across Little Inkberrow, the motor may go rough, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or stall. When safe, pull over then turn everything off — without turning it on again to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M5, under 10 miles from Little Inkberrow, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe rather than pressing on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Little Inkberrow to the car park by Derelict Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post - Inkberrow is a very different job from a run towards Worcester, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to rinse out once your engine has run, and our engineers do all of it where your car has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage if it's caught soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Little Inkberrow?
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Little Inkberrow: a side street near Inkberrow Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Which fluid went in, about how much, plus whether your engine has been run: our engineers ask first, since those decide the job.
Then your tank is cleared where the vehicle sits, so the contaminated 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. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Engine not run? Then expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The equipment is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Priming the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. Then we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space at Redditch or a drive around Little Inkberrow. The check before our technicians leave is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. No workshop is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Little Inkberrow itself
Little Inkberrow is a small hamlet in Worcestershire, situated inland at an elevation of 79 metres, near the larger village of Inkberrow. Little Inkberrow lies approximately 9.9 miles from Worcester and 93.5 miles from London, in a rural area characterized by detached housing and nearby woodland such as Stock Wood. Little Inkberrow is part of a wider network of small settlements in the area, including Stonepits.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Little Inkberrow included
Inkberrow, Stock Wood and Stonepits are among the towns around Little Inkberrow that the same teams serve, along with much of Worcestershire beyond, throughout the WR postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Wherever your car sits — your driveway at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — our technicians drain it there, with no need to take it to us; that suits Little Inkberrow, a rural hamlet, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Little Inkberrow?
Not one flat figure would be fair, because every job is different. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, your engine has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind St Peter's Church.
What went in, how much, plus if the engine ran: every Little Inkberrow enquiry begins with exactly that, before any figure, not after. Their replies shrink the range right down to a single number.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Still next to the vehicle around Little Inkberrow?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step there is. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if the engine ran are everything our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout Worcestershire, Little Inkberrow included.