Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Portobello
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing starts until your engine pulls it through. In Portobello, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the car is. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Portobello: the first few minutes
To do:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, take the keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting WV13 3, or simply the name of a street nearby, so call from the car.
Not to do:
- No starting the engine — not briefly, not to shift the vehicle.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch up Dilloways Lane.
- Don't try to drain the vehicle yourself by the kerbside.
Rolling the car off the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Portobello forecourt you are on, the Texaco included. At home, your car remains exactly where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to the exhaust, treating what the motor emits. No part in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and none of it was intended to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, since it's denser than diesel, and pools down where the intake takes its fuel from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath your diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Summerford Place yesterday and never started remains the straightforward one, provided nobody touches your key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It eats at certain metals used in fuel components, working on any part it reaches until it is removed from the system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage overnight for a car sitting around Portobello. Only inside the tank, it stays the same. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water gives none of that, which is a second kind of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have an issue of thin fuel. Blended through the diesel and left still, it's harmless for now; using your engine does the damage.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue splits again from the diesel, and so thinning it won't help. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" does more harm here than nearly any other slip — in The Manor or the centre of Portobello alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and the tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in West Midlands the car is standing.
Portobello: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not on purpose. Plenty of vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. It usually takes place outside the house, from a bottle bought on the journey home, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Stow Heath Primary School, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the car. Someone pours the bottle in at home, just off Mount Road, as the day ends. Another pattern: dim light, a pub car park outside The Grapes, and someone opening that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the spare car in a home with both fuel types — the vehicles people know the least. Same mistake, same first response — leave it off — wherever you are in Portobello or the remainder of West Midlands.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Portobello?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Your filter and lines have had it sucked through, and some running takes it on to the injection pump and every injector.
Perhaps returning from Bilston Castle Mound, or part way across Portobello, your engine may go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, flash the dash or cut out. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Keep the car off instead of testing it again. Each start pulls more of it through.
Exit the M6, under 3 miles from Portobello, at the first junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Portobello to the car park by War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Wolverhampton, under 3 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to clean out once your engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where your car has ended up. Noticed quickly, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
Portobello: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Portobello: a side street near Bilston Castle Mound, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. What went in, about how much, plus if your motor has turned over: we check first, since those shape the work.
Then the tank is drained where the car stands, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush counts far more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue will not clear out by itself. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. About half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where the engine has not run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with clean diesel comes at the end. Whether it is a parking space outside Willenhall or a driveway around Portobello, that is where our technicians fire it up and you set off. The check before we head off is that it runs smoothly on clean diesel. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Portobello and where it is
Portobello is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the city of Wolverhampton. Portobello has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant in the area. Portobello is located near several other local places, including St Chads, Bunkers Hill, and Stowlawn, and is about 2.7 miles from Wolverhampton city centre. Portobello sits at an elevation of around 131 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains across Portobello and West Midlands
Throughout the WV postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs in Portobello reach most of West Midlands as well, St Chads, Bunkers Hill and Stowlawn among them. Near a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
No moving is needed. In Portobello, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: the vehicle is drained where it stands, be it in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a filling station.
Portobello: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job is different, so no fixed quote is honest. Three things move the price: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the car is. That last one turns on whether a van can get to it safely, and an open driveway is simpler than a tight gap behind St Chad.
For that reason, each call from Portobello begins by asking the identical trio — which fluid was put in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before a figure. Those replies turn a range into a straight price.
The price is given during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. As the van is travelling, dig out your policy: many include misfuelling.
Still beside the vehicle around Portobello?
Then, touch nothing — that's the best step available. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Portobello or anywhere in West Midlands.