Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Rhiews
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and your ignition as well. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. The trouble starts once it's sucked through the pump — it won't burn, and it will not combine with diesel. In Rhiews, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where the vehicle is. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Rhiews
To do:
- Pocket the keys, and that prevents someone switching the power on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Which product, and roughly how much amount? Save the bottle or your receipt, and we can know.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting TF9 3, or the name of the closest street, brings the van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- Don't start your engine, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel will not thin it.
- Even a short distance down Willaston Road is too far to drive the car.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the verge.
At a forecourt around Rhiews, whether it's the Morrisons or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. At home, your car remains just where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a separate tank it is fed directly to the exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that is precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a driveway in Spoonley overnight and left unstarted is the straightforward one. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up so far — though when your engine turns, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it overnight around Rhiews makes things worse. Inside that tank alone, waiting does nothing. And there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the parts that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel commonly the bigger problem?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a problem of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is inside that tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It does not burn, and so it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, because it separates again — and the next fill won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Rhiews or out in Longslow, does more harm than almost any other slip.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever in Shropshire your car has come to rest, an unstarted motor leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the simplest part of any fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Rhiews
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles rests right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Mostly it's not the filling station: someone picks up a container driving home and pours it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Moreton Say CofE Primary School the top-up is rushed. A driver tips the container in at home, right off Bletchley Road, as the day ends. Or the car is topped up in the car park at the pub in the village, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It happens most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Rhiews or the remainder of Shropshire, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Rhiews?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Via the filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that is how far it travels.
Expect rough running, smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Moat Plantation, say, or part way across Rhiews. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M6, under 15 miles from Rhiews, by the first junction and park safely, not carrying on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so heading for Stoke-on-Trent, under 25 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Rhiews to the car park by Moreton Say Village Hall. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where the vehicle has come to a stop, and once your engine has run there is more of it. Spotted soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Rhiews: what it takes
Anywhere it has come to rest around Rhiews — a forecourt, a lay-by, a driveway, a street beside Saint Margaret's — the van travels to the vehicle. Three replies decide the job, and so first our engineers ask what got in, about the amount, plus whether your motor has run.
Then that tank is drained where the vehicle sits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters far more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what remains won't clear out on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we arrive, provided your engine hasn't run. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to prime the system on clean diesel. Whether it is a parking bay outside Whitchurch (Shropshire) or a driveway in Rhiews, that is where our technicians start the car and you set off. The check before we leave is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. As the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Rhiews and where it is
Rhiews is a small locality in Shropshire, situated inland at an elevation of around 90 metres. Rhiews lies near the villages of Newstreet Lane and Styche Hall, and is close to Moretonwood. Rhiews is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Rhiews is located approximately 16.6 miles from Stoke-on-Trent, a major city in the West Midlands region.
AdBlue drains in Rhiews and across Shropshire
The vans that answer AdBlue calls around Rhiews also cover the places about it, Newstreet Lane, Styche Hall and Moretonwood among them, and most of Shropshire beyond, across the TF postcode area. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking beats guessing, so ring.
No towing is needed. In Rhiews, a small village, a mobile service works: the vehicle is emptied on the spot, whether on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Rhiews
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs are not the same. Three things move the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one comes down to whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Calverhall Village Hall.
Ahead of a figure, never after, every call from Rhiews opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and if it ran. Their replies shrink a range right down to one figure.
You hear that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Beside the vehicle in Rhiews, still?
Right now, the best thing to do with the car is to not touch it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Rhiews or anywhere within Shropshire, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran.