Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Shire Oak
Motor off, ignition off: that's where you begin if AdBlue has got into your diesel tank. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing happens until your motor pulls it through. If your engine has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and thoroughly flushed where your car stands around Shire Oak. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Shire Oak, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
To do:
- Keys out — then nobody can switch anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- Which product, and roughly how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and we will see.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting WS8 7, or just the name of a street nearby, so phone from the spot.
Do not do these:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to shift your car.
- The ignition remains off: on many diesels, switching it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel will not thin it.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way along St. Marks Road.
- Beside the road, do not attempt emptying it on your own.
The staff working at any Shire Oak filling station — the the nearest petrol station among them — will normally lend a hand rolling it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a dedicated tank it is fed straight to the exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. No part inside an injection pump is made for this fluid — and none of it was intended to go through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The pickup takes fuel from the deepest part of your tank, and that is just where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Holly Bank last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
From there it does two kinds of damage. 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 running on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. A car left standing around Shire Oak with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector depend on diesel running past them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Shell and you have a fault of thin fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and sitting in that tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the following fill will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Shire Oak or out in Clayhanger, costs more than almost any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Wherever across West Midlands the car has come to rest, an unrun engine means the AdBlue still in the tank: the easiest part of any fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Shire Oak
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many motors rests right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly happens at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
Usually, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Millfield Primary School, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone refills the car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Simmonds Way. Or someone new to that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, parked in the car park by The Shire Oak.
Hired cars, brand-new cars, fleet vehicles, or the spare car in a family with both fuels: the least familiar cars get it the most. Keep it switched off: that is the first response to an identical mistake, anywhere around Shire Oak or the remainder of West Midlands you happen to be.
Shire Oak: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The fuel filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and some running carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any may appear, maybe midway across Shire Oak or returning from Black Country Millennium Forest. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Shire Oak lies under 3 miles from the M6 Toll; if you were on it, leave by the first junction and stop somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further in. That's why a hop across Shire Oak to park beside St. Bernadette's Catholic Church and a drive of under 10 miles for Lichfield are such different jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has been started, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. Permanent damage is very rare if it's caught quickly.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Shire Oak: what it takes
Anywhere it has come to rest around Shire Oak — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street beside Walsall Wood Pithead Monument — our van travels to your car. Which fluid went in, roughly how much, and if your engine has been run: we check before all else, since those decide the job.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one after the tank is drained, on the spot. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of your car follows at the end, after clean diesel is added and the fuel filter gets flushed or, if necessary, replaced. Engine not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that's the final step. At that point our technicians start the car and you drive off, whether from a parking bay at Shenstone or a drive around Shire Oak. It's checked on clean diesel to make sure it runs properly before our engineers go. Our technicians do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Shire Oak
Shire Oak is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the city of Lichfield. Shire Oak has a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities, with nearby places including Catshill, Walsall Wood, and Brownhills. Shire Oak is located at an elevation of 162 metres, approximately 5 miles from Lichfield and 109 miles from London.
AdBlue drains around Shire Oak and across West Midlands
Our teams that answer AdBlue calls around Shire Oak also cover the spots around it, Catshill, Walsall Wood and Brownhills among them, and most of West Midlands beyond, across the WS postcode area. Phone and ask instead of guessing if you are by a county line, or anywhere tricky to pin down.
No moving is needed. In Shire Oak, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is emptied on the spot, whether on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Shire Oak?
There is no fair single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of your car, because an open drive is simpler for our van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Walsall Wood Methodist Church.
With that reason, each call from Shire Oak opens with the same trio — which fluid went in, what quantity, whether it ran — ahead of a quote. When they are known, a range turns into a single firm number.
You get that quote on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Beside your car around Shire Oak, right now?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether it ran are all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder throughout West Midlands, Shire Oak too.