Sheldon: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and nothing happens until the motor pulls it through. Caught before your engine has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Sheldon. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Sheldon
Do these:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, take your keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Give us a postcode starting B26 3, or whatever street is closest, and the van reaches you directly — so ring wherever you are.
Do not do these:
- Shifting the vehicle just a few yards is no reason to fire up your engine.
- The ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short distance down Mardon Road.
- Draining the tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
The attendants working at any Sheldon filling station — the Morrisons included — will usually help rolling it clear if you ask. At your own drive, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. A fuel pump is not made to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays apart instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the same spot the intake sucks from. A motor filled on a drive in Garretts Green yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the simple one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once the engine runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of your tank.
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 components it gets to for as long as it stays there. Overnight, a car sitting around Sheldon with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it is only in your tank, nothing changes. And there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Petrol put into a diesel on BP's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that is the whole problem. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is in the tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the following tankful, and AdBlue separates back out of the diesel, so watering it won't work. That is why the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" costs more here than almost any other mistake — in Olton or the heart of Sheldon equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Anywhere across West Midlands the car has come to rest, an unstarted engine means the AdBlue still inside the reservoir: the easiest bit of any fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Sheldon?
Plenty of motors place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and in dim light the two can look identical. Nobody intends it. Usually it is not the forecourt: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. The refill gets hurried outside St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, because the dash lit up with a warning as the children were dropped in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Horse Shoes Lane. Otherwise, after dark outside The Wheatsheaf, your vehicle gets refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It occurs most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Anywhere in West Midlands, Sheldon as well, the slip does not change, and nor does the first step: leave it switched off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sheldon?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Given any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, having passed via your filter and pipework.
Rough running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard warnings or stalling: each may appear, perhaps part way across Sheldon or coming back from Willclare Sports Society Ltd. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M42, under 5 miles from Sheldon, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Sheldon to the car park by Church of St Thomas More is a very different job from a run towards Birmingham, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once your engine has been run. Long-term damage is very rare if it is noticed early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Sheldon
Anywhere it has come to rest around Sheldon — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street beside Dakota Bust (Sheldon Interchange) — our van travels to the vehicle. Before anything else our engineers ask what went in, about how much, and whether the motor has run, since those answers determine this work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one when that tank is drained, on the spot. What remains from AdBlue won't flush out unaided, and so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Fresh diesel goes in after your filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we get there, provided the motor has not run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a busy forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. Whether it is a parking bay by Marston Green or a drive in Sheldon, that is where our technicians start the engine and you drive off. Before we leave, we make sure it is running properly with fresh diesel in. Our technicians do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a garage. The insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Sheldon, for a moment
Sheldon is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Cole and close to the city of Birmingham. Sheldon sits at an elevation of around 97 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Sheldon is located near other suburban areas such as Lyndon Green, Garrets Green, and Gilbertstone, and is approximately 5.4 miles from Birmingham city centre. Sheldon has a population of around 8068 residents.
Sheldon and West Midlands: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs around Sheldon go to teams that serve the places around it — Lyndon Green, Garrets Green plus Gilbertstone — and most of West Midlands beyond, across B postcodes. Close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to pin down? Checking beats guessing, so phone.
Sheldon is a residential suburb, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
Sheldon: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Because each callouts differ, a single price would not be honest. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the position of your car, since an open driveway is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight space behind The Wheatsheaf (Sheldon Interchange).
For that reason, each enquiry from Sheldon begins with the same trio — which fluid was put in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — ahead of a figure. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Sheldon: still next to your car?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Sheldon or anywhere in West Midlands, after you call 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran.