AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Short Heath? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, keep your motor off then leave the ignition off. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the fuel system pulls it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and carefully cleaned where the vehicle stands around Short Heath. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in Short Heath
To do:
- Take the keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, so don't bin it away.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting WV12 5, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the car.
Do not do these:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to reposition the car.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not blend, so it's pointless.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch down Trinity Road.
- No emptying it yourself, either, on the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any Short Heath forecourt — the J.N.D. Total Economy included — will usually help pushing it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it just where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
It doesn't blend. After it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts not at all like diesel. Denser than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the very place the pickup draws from. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Dudleys Fields 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 damage. It eats at some metals found in fuel systems, working on whatever it reaches until it's cleared from the system. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight around Short Heath leaves things worse. In the tank only, time costs nothing. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water gives none of that, and that is a second form of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Esso's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that's the main problem. No harm comes while it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only when your motor runs on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay after the next fill, and AdBlue separates again out of the diesel, and so thinning it won't help. Hence the flush matters more, and turning the key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other mistake — in Leamore or the heart of Short Heath alike.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest part on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in there — anywhere across West Midlands the vehicle has stopped.
Short Heath: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. It usually takes place at home, from a bottle grabbed on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. The top-up is rushed outside Woodlands Academy of Learning, because your dash flashed with a warning while the children were taken off. In the evening, a container goes in on a drive close to Pimbury Road. Another version: dim light, the car park by Duke of Cambridge, and a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Short Heath or the remainder of West Midlands, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Short Heath?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It's been pulled through your filter and your lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and the injectors.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from The United Kingdom Inn Beer Garden or halfway across Short Heath. No restarting to check: stop once it is safe, then turn everything off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Short Heath lies under a mile from the M6; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of carrying on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That is why crossing Short Heath to park near Holy Trinity and a drive of under 5 miles for Wolverhampton are very different jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has stopped, and once your engine has run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very uncommon if it's caught soon.
Short Heath: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest around Short Heath — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a road by Short Heath Methodist Church — our van comes to your car. Which fluid got in, about the quantity, plus whether the motor has been run: our engineers check before all else, since those decide the work.
Next, draining the tank right there removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers arrive, if your engine has not run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Finally, the system is primed with clean diesel. After that our technicians fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking bay outside Bloxwich or a drive in Short Heath. Our engineers make sure it runs correctly on fresh diesel before leaving. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. At the end, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Short Heath and where it is
Short Heath is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated near the River Tame and close to the city of Wolverhampton. Short Heath has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are predominant, and it is located about 156 metres above sea level. Short Heath is part of the larger West Midlands conurbation, but retains a distinct character as a residential area with nearby amenities like Ashmore Lake. Short Heath is also close to other local places, including Lane Head and New Invention.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Short Heath included
Over the WV postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in Short Heath serve much of West Midlands too, Lane Head, New Invention and Ashmore Lake among them. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of guessing.
A mobile service fits Short Heath, a residential suburb: you have 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 in Short Heath?
No single price could be honest, because each job is different. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, since an open drive is easier for our van to get to safely than a tight gap behind The Hive Hub.
Ahead of any figure, never after, each enquiry from Short Heath begins with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and whether the engine ran. With those replies, the range shrinks to one fixed figure.
You hear that price on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Short Heath: still next to your car?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it ran are everything our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across West Midlands, Short Heath too.