Rednal: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The trouble starts once it's pulled through the lines — it will not ignite, and it will not blend with diesel. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully cleaned where the vehicle stands in Rednal. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Rednal: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- Remove the keys, and that prevents anyone turning the electrics on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting B45 8, or just the name of a street close by, so call from the spot.
Do not do these:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to move your car.
- Many diesels power their pump the instant the ignition comes on, so keep the car off.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel will not thin it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Ashmead Drive.
- By the road, do not try draining it on your own.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you roll your vehicle away from the island if you are at a forecourt around Rednal, whether it is the Harvest Energy or elsewhere. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays exactly where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. Its own reservoir keeps it, and from there it's sprayed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and an injection pump can't deal with urea.
It doesn't blend. After it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Lickey last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that crystallises in filter elements and narrow channels; meanwhile, since it attacks certain metals, every part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it remains in there. Lines carrying AdBlue spell damage by morning for a car sitting in Rednal. Just inside that tank, it stays the same. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, which is a separate form of damage.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
A problem of thinned fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol at the Morrisons. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into the diesel and sitting inside your tank, it does nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates again — and the following fill won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Rednal or out in Rubery, costs more than nearly any other error.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only in that tank, the easiest section of the entire system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has come to rest across Worcestershire.
Rednal: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally under a single flap — may look the same. No one means it; plenty of layouts invite it. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways account for the majority of them. The refill is hurried outside Rednal Hill Junior School, after your dash lit up with a warning as the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Chestnut Drive. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park at The Oak Tree, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — rentals, brand-new cars, company ones, and the spare vehicle in a family with one of each fuels. Wherever across Worcestershire, Rednal as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first response: keep it switched off.
Rednal: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. It's been pulled through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors.
Expect rough running, smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — returning from Lickey Coppice Green, say, or midway across Rednal. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M42, under 3 miles from Rednal, the first junction is where to exit, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Rednal to park beside Rednal Gospel Church and a drive of under 10 miles towards Birmingham are such different jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the cleaning where your car has ended up, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is spotted early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Rednal
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Rednal: a side street close to Cofton Village Hall, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work rests on three replies, which our engineers get first — which fluid went in, the amount, and whether the engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together after that tank is drained, on the spot. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through because what remains won't wash away by itself. Clean diesel goes in once the fuel filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps make a busy forecourt sensible to work on, and they run quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
New diesel goes in to bleed the fuel system, and that's the last step. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive around Rednal or in a bay outside Longbridge. It is tested on fresh diesel to confirm it runs properly before our technicians go. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Rednal itself
Rednal is a suburban area in the West Midlands region of England, situated approximately 7.8 miles southwest of Birmingham. Rednal sits at an elevation of 201 metres, near the Lickey Hills and Cofton Hackett, in a predominantly semi-detached residential setting. Rednal is characterized by its inland location and relatively small population of around 2489 residents.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Rednal included
The vans that answer AdBlue calls around Rednal also cover the spots around it, Cofton Hackett, Lickey Hills and Kendal End among them, and most of Worcestershire beyond, across the B postcode area. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are close to a county line, or somewhere tricky to pin down.
A mobile service fits Rednal, a residential suburb: there's no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it there, on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Rednal?
Since the callouts vary, a flat price wouldn't be fair. Three things move the cost: whether the motor has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a van can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind St Michael And All Angels.
That's why each call from Rednal starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it's run. When those are answered, a range becomes a single fixed number.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, it is settled that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. As the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Rednal: still beside the vehicle?
Then, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Rednal or wherever within Worcestershire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.