Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Worcester
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the motor. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. It does not burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when the system draws it in. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly cleaned where your car stands around Worcester. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Worcester: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Pull your keys out, and so no one switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- The van locates you fastest with a postcode starting WR1 3, or just the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the car.
Never do these:
- Shifting the car even a short way is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Switching the key to ignition by itself starts your pump going on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't blend, and so it's wasted.
- Even a short distance down St Swithin's Street is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the verge.
On a forecourt around Worcester, whether it's the Esso or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump. On the drive, the vehicle remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. Kept in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It doesn't blend. Once it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts not at all like fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects below it — the very place the intake sucks from. When the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Rainbow Hill last night and never started remains the simple case, as long as no one touches the key.
From there it does two kinds of damage. It attacks some metals used in fuel systems, attacking any part it reaches until it is removed from the system. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow channels. Overnight, a car sitting around Worcester with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it's only inside the tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel running through them, so the water part damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Texaco and you have a fault of thin fuel. Harm just comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside the tank, it causes none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Tolladine or the middle of Worcester.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Anywhere across Worcestershire your vehicle has stopped, an unrun engine means the AdBlue still in the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to clear.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Worcester
Many cars place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap, and after dark the two can appear the same. No one intends it. Mostly it is never the forecourt: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and tips it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a few familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside Stanley Road Primary School the top-up is hurried. Near The Cross, someone pours a container in at home in the evening. Else, in dim light outside Slug and Lettuce, your vehicle gets refilled by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a new car, a company vehicle, or the spare vehicle of a home with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers know least. Anywhere across Worcestershire, Worcester as well, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first response: leave it off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Worcester, and your engine started?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. It has been pulled through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Berkeley's Hospital, say, or part way across Worcester. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off instead of testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Exit the M5, under 3 miles from Worcester, by the first junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
Mileage matters: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, so driving towards Gloucester, under 25 miles away, makes a far larger job than crossing Worcester to the car park by TK Maxx. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to flush once the motor has been run, and our engineers do all of it where your car has stopped. Spotted quickly, it very rarely leaves lasting damage.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Worcester?
The car stays where it is, whether that is a street beside Chapel Walk, a driveway, a layby or a filling station in Worcester, and our van travels to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether your engine has been run, because those answers determine the work.
Then your tank is emptied where the car waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we arrive, provided your engine has not run. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Lastly, your system is bled with clean diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where the car is parked, by Worcester Foregate Street or on a driveway around Worcester. Before we leave, our engineers make sure it's running correctly with new diesel in. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About Worcester itself
Worcester is a city situated in the English countryside, serving as the main town of Worcestershire. Located on the banks of a river, it offers a scenic setting. The city is positioned near several major towns, including Birmingham to the north-east and Gloucester to the south. Worcester is also home to a notable cathedral, a prominent feature of the city.
AdBlue drains across Worcestershire, Worcester included
AdBlue call-outs around Worcester are passed to vans that cover the places around it — Britannia Square, Diglis as well as St Johns — and much of Worcestershire further out, throughout WR postcodes. Ring and check instead of guessing if you are close to a county line, or somewhere tricky to explain.
A van that comes to you suits Worcester, a cathedral city: there's no need to take your vehicle to us, since we drain it on the spot, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Worcester?
Because the callouts differ, a flat figure wouldn't be fair. Three things change the price: whether your engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the vehicle is. That last one turns on whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight gap behind John Perrins & Son.
With that in mind, each call from Worcester opens with the identical trio — which fluid went in, what quantity, if it ran — before a quote. Their answers shrink a range down to one number.
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 comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Still beside your car in Worcester?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to leave it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, across Worcester or anywhere in Worcestershire, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether it ran.