Tyseley: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep the engine off — and your ignition too. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it will not ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble just comes once the pump starts pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Tyseley, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it is caught before your engine has been run. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Tyseley
Do these:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Put your hazards on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly how much, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Quote a B11 2 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Pouring in extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch down Wharfdale Road.
- By the road, don't try draining it yourself.
Ask the attendants to help you roll your car off the pumps if you're on a forecourt around Tyseley, whether it's the Shell or elsewhere. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle precisely where it sits.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the very spot the intake sucks from. A vehicle filled on a driveway in Acocks Green overnight and left unstarted is the straightforward case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but once the motor runs, that is what goes first, straight from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of harm come from there. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and clog filters. Worse, it attacks certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. A motor left sitting in Tyseley with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and every injector depend on diesel running past them, and so the water content damages them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
An issue of thinned fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Motive. Damage only comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and left in your tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Because it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the following fill won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Tyseley or out in Greet, does more harm than almost any other slip.
The same good news applies as with petrol. If your engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in West Midlands your car is standing.
Tyseley: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Many vehicles place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, now and then under a single flap, and in dim light the two can look identical. No one intends it. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside Redhill Primary School. Close to Redfern Road, someone pours a bottle in at home in the evening. One more pattern: darkness, a pub car park by The Old Bill and Bull, and someone opening that flap for the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a brand-new vehicle, a fleet car, or the spare car of a family with one of each fuels — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever you're around Tyseley or the rest of West Midlands, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Tyseley: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. The filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Maybe returning from Acocks Green Recreation Ground, or midway across Tyseley, the engine might run rough, smoke, drop power, flash your dash or cut out. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Leave the vehicle off rather than restarting it to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
On the Aston Expressway, under 5 miles from Tyseley, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere safe is where to stop — not carrying on.
Mileage counts: each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, so driving towards Birmingham, under 5 miles away, makes a far larger job than hopping across Tyseley to the car park by Madrassa Islamia Razvia (reg). Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where your car has come to a stop, and once your engine has been started there is more of it. Lasting damage is very rare when it is spotted soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Tyseley?
Our engineers come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Tyseley: a side street close to John Currie Ice Skater lived here, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job rests on three replies, and our engineers get first — what was put in, the amount, and if your engine has turned over.
On the spot, the tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through because what remains won't wash out by itself. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians arrive. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Priming the system with new diesel comes at the end. You drive off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Tyseley or in a bay at the nearest station. Before we leave, our engineers make sure it is running properly with clean diesel in. The whole job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to go to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Tyseley
Tyseley is a suburban area in the West Midlands, situated on the River Cole and close to the city of Birmingham. Tyseley sits at an elevation of 124 metres, with its terraced housing stock reflecting the area's historical development. Tyseley is located near other suburban areas such as Hay Mills and Stockfield, and is approximately 3.4 miles from Birmingham city centre. Tyseley has a population of around 4729 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains across West Midlands, Tyseley included
Hay Mills, Stockfield and South Yardley are among the towns near Tyseley that the same teams reach, together with much of West Midlands beyond, throughout the B postcode area. Assuming won't help by a border or somewhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
No towing is needed. In Tyseley, a residential suburb, a mobile service works: the vehicle is emptied where it stands, whether on a driveway, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
Tyseley: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job differs, so not one fixed price would be fair. Three things move the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether a van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind Veolia Energy from Waste Plant.
That is why every call from Tyseley starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it's run. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Before anyone sets off, you hear the price on the phone. And payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Tyseley: still alongside your car?
Then, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Tyseley or anywhere in West Midlands.