Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Showell Green
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The harm starts once it's pulled through your lines — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Showell Green. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Showell Green, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
To do:
- Remove your keys, and that stops anyone turning the power on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting B11 4, or just the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the car.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: the engine remains off.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts the pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way along Phipson Road.
- Draining your tank yourself beside the road isn't worth trying.
The staff working at any Showell Green filling station — the Shell included — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. On your own drive, do not touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump is not made to cope with it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The pickup takes fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that's just where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. A car filled on a driveway in Balsall Heath overnight and left unstarted counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once your engine runs, that is what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
After it's pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. 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 stays there. Overnight, a car sitting around Showell Green with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it's just in the tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and every injector depend on diesel running past them, so the water part damages them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol at the Esso. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and left in the tank, it causes none.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable substance. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Moseley or the middle of Showell Green.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around West Midlands the vehicle is standing.
Showell Green: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then under a single flap — may appear the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of designs allow it. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside St John's CofE Primary School. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway close to Lyons Grove. Otherwise, in dim light outside The Bear, your vehicle gets refilled by a driver using that flap the first time.
Hired motors, new cars, fleet cars, or the second vehicle in a family with both fuels: the least familiar vehicles get it the most. Anywhere in West Midlands, Showell Green as well, the slip does not change, and neither does the first response: leave it switched off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Showell Green, and the motor started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and lines have had it pulled through, and any running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Balsall Heath Park or halfway across Showell Green. No restarting to check: pull over once safe, then switch everything off. Every start pulls more of that through.
Exit the Aston Expressway, under 5 miles from Showell Green, by the next junction and park safely, not carrying on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further in. That is why crossing Showell Green to park near Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre and a drive of under 3 miles towards Birmingham are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the engine has been started. Lasting damage is very unusual when it's caught quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Showell Green?
Wherever it has stopped in Showell Green — a filling station, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Sparkhill Library — the van travels to your vehicle. Three replies decide the work, and so first our engineers ask what was put in, about what quantity, plus if the engine has run.
Next, emptying that tank on the spot takes out the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. A full flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, because residue will not clear out by itself. After that, your filter: cleaned, or replaced when it must be. After that fresh diesel, and then a check of your vehicle. If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Lastly, the fuel system is bled with fresh diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, by Moseley Village or on a drive around Showell Green. It's checked on new diesel to make sure it runs correctly before we go. No garage is needed at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. Afterwards, there is paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Showell Green
Showell Green is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated approximately 2.6 miles southeast of Birmingham city centre. Showell Green sits at an elevation of around 135 metres, near the suburbs of Sparkhill and Wake Green. Showell Green is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting the area's historical development as a residential neighbourhood. Showell Green is also close to the Greet area, forming part of the larger Birmingham urban landscape.
AdBlue drains across Showell Green and West Midlands
AdBlue call-outs in Showell Green are passed to teams that cover the towns near it — Sparkhill, Wake Green plus Greet — and most of West Midlands further out, throughout B postcodes. Phone and check rather than guess when you're by a county line, or somewhere awkward to explain.
A van that comes to you suits Showell Green, a residential suburb: you have no need to bring your car to us, since we empty it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Showell Green
Every job is different, and so no single quote would be fair. What moves the price is, first of all, whether the motor has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Guru Nanak Gurdwara South Birmingham Temple.
Ahead of a figure, not after, each enquiry from Showell Green begins with the same three questions: the fuel, the quantity, and whether it ran. Those answers shrink a range down to a single figure.
You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Alongside the vehicle around Showell Green, right now?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the most helpful step available. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Showell Green or wherever in West Midlands.