Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Spring Vale
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you begin if AdBlue has got into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm starts till your engine sucks it round. In Spring Vale, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Spring Vale
Do:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- Tell us a postcode starting B10 0, or whatever street lies nearest, and the van finds you straight — so ring wherever you are.
Things not to do:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself starts the pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out instead of thinning.
- Even a short stretch along Mount Pleasant is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Draining your tank yourself by the road is not one to try.
On a forecourt in Spring Vale, whether it is the Texaco or another one, ask the attendants to help you push your car away from the pump. On your own driveway, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. From a separate reservoir it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor lets out. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
Poured in with your diesel, it keeps apart rather than blending — quite unlike fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. A vehicle topped up on a drive in Sparkbrook yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the simple case. Nothing has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but once the engine turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. It attacks certain metals used in fuel components, working on any part it touches till it is removed completely. And when the water goes, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in tiny channels. By daybreak, a car parked around Spring Vale with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it is just in the tank, nothing changes. And there is the water: it brings no protection to the parts that need it most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more significant than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Morrisons's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that is the whole issue. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's in that tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Whether the vehicle sits in Highgate or the centre of Spring Vale, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush counts for more. Why: it won't remain mixed, and so watering it down is impossible; and deposits and corrosion survive the next fill.
As with petrol, there's good news. Wherever in West Midlands your car has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest bit of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Spring Vale: how it ends up there
Many motors place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two can look the same. Nobody intends it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside Regents Park Community Primary School, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills the car. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a drive close to Bordesley Park Road. Or your car is topped up in the car park outside The Clements Arms, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
Rented cars, brand-new motors, company cars, or the second car in a home with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Wherever you're in Spring Vale or the rest of West Midlands, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Spring Vale, and the motor started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. Through the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it travels.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — coming back from Kingston Hill Park, say, or midway across Spring Vale. Once safe, pull over then turn everything off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Exit the Aston Expressway, under 3 miles from Spring Vale, by the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. That is why a hop across Spring Vale to park near Middle Ring Road 15th June 1990 and a drive of under 3 miles towards Birmingham are very distinct jobs. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the engine has been running. Caught quickly, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Spring Vale?
Anywhere it has come to rest in Spring Vale — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a street beside Pat Benson Boxing — our van comes to the vehicle. The work rests on three answers, which our engineers get first — which fluid was put in, the amount, and whether the engine has turned over.
Right there, the tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. A careful flush counts much more after AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains will not clear out by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If your engine hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming the fuel system with clean diesel comes at the end. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, at Bordesley or on a drive around Spring Vale. Our engineers make sure it runs correctly on fresh diesel before we leave. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never has to go to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Spring Vale and where it is
Spring Vale is a suburban area located on the riverside in the West Midlands, with an elevation of around 115 metres. Spring Vale sits close to the city centre of Birmingham, approximately 1.3 miles away, and is near other areas such as Bordesley, Deritend, and Digbeth. Spring Vale has a population of around 4788 people and is predominantly composed of flat-type housing. Spring Vale is situated in a region that is about 99.8 miles northwest of London.
AdBlue drains across Spring Vale and West Midlands
AdBlue jobs around Spring Vale are passed to teams that serve the towns around it — Bordesley, Deritend plus Digbeth — and much of West Midlands further out, throughout B postcodes. Guessing doesn't help by a county line or somewhere tricky to pin down; ring and ask.
Wherever the car sits — a driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a filling station — our technicians empty it on the spot, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Spring Vale, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Spring Vale
Every job differs, and so no single quote would be fair. What shifts the cost is, firstly, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Small Heath Boxing Club.
That is why every call from Spring Vale starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it's run. Their answers shrink the range right down to a single number.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before anyone leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. As our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
Spring Vale: still beside your car?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your car is to not touch it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Spring Vale or anywhere in West Midlands.