Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in New Dock
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. In plain terms, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Being water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble just comes when the pump starts drawing it. In New Dock, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around New Dock: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- If you are anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or the till receipt, and we will know.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting DY1 1, or simply the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Things not to do:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to shift your car.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the instant the ignition goes on, and so leave the vehicle off.
- Adding extra diesel does not work: AdBlue separates out rather than blending.
- Even a short stretch up Maughan Street is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself at the roadside.
Rolling your vehicle off the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever New Dock forecourt you are on, the Texaco or any other. Parked on your own drive? Then it stays exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
It does not combine. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like fuel. It sinks, since it's denser than diesel, and pools down where the intake takes its fuel from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that had AdBlue in Blowers Green last night and hasn't turned since. The liquid sits at the foot of your tank, untouched — but it will be the first thing through once the motor runs, ahead of any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of harm. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and tiny passages; and, since it attacks certain metals, each part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays in there. By daybreak, a vehicle parked in New Dock with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it's just in your tank, nothing changes. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
An issue of thinned fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Esso. No harm comes as long as it sits unused, mixed into the diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Dudley or the middle of New Dock.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Wherever in West Midlands the vehicle has come to rest, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
New Dock: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars sits right next to your diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly occurs at home, from a bottle bought on the journey home, rather than at the filling station.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside Jesson's Church of England Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone refills the car. Near Wellington Road, a driver tips a container in at home in the evening. Or your car is topped up in the car park at White Swan, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It crops up most in a hire car, a brand-new car, a company car, or the spare car of a family with both fuel types — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever in West Midlands, New Dock included, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it switched off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in New Dock, and the engine started?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside your tank. Via your filter, through the lines, and — with any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
You may see the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Grange Park or halfway across New Dock. Once safe, stop then switch it off — with no restarting to see. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M5, under 5 miles from New Dock, the next junction is where to leave, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
A quick hop across New Dock to the car park by Wellington Road Community Centre is one matter; heading for Wolverhampton, under 10 miles away, is something else, since each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So distance matters. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the motor has been started. Long-term damage is very uncommon when it's spotted quickly.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in New Dock
Wherever it has come to rest around New Dock — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a street by Guru Nanak Singh Sabha Gurdwara — our van comes to your car. What went in, roughly the quantity, and whether your engine has been run: our engineers ask before all else, since those decide the job.
Then the tank is cleared where the car waits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through because what remains will not wash away unaided. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then the car is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when your engine has not run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the final step. At that point our engineers fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay at Tipton or a driveway around New Dock. Before we leave, our technicians confirm it is running properly with fresh diesel in. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once the job is done.
About New Dock, for a moment
New Dock is a suburban area located on the riverside in the West Midlands, with a mix of residential and other land uses. New Dock sits near the city of Wolverhampton, about 5.5 miles away, and is close to other nearby places such as Old Dock and Eve Hill. New Dock has a population of around 6046 people and is characterised by a predominance of flat-type housing. New Dock is situated at an elevation of 198 metres above sea level, relatively high compared to other parts of the region.
AdBlue drains around New Dock and across West Midlands
Over the DY postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue call-outs around New Dock reach most of West Midlands as well, Old Dock, Eve Hill and Springs Mire included. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or anywhere tricky to describe; ring and check.
A van that comes to you suits New Dock, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in New Dock: the cost of fixing it
Because each callouts differ, a single price would not be honest. Three things move the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight space behind Dudley Leisure Centre.
For that in mind, every call from New Dock opens with the same trio — what was put in, how much, whether it ran — before a figure. The answers turn a range into a straight price.
Priced on the call before the engineer heads out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
New Dock: still beside the car?
Right now, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel takes over, in New Dock or anywhere in West Midlands.