I need a bit of advice.

[morninggents]

A belated happy new year to all on here. I stupidly added some screen wash and water to my adblue tank thinking it was a rear screen wash tank. Luckily it was only about one tenth of the 1 litre screen wash, so 100 ml, and about double that amount of water. My adblue tank is 16 litres and was probably between 50% and 66% full so taking the mid point of that I reckon there is roughly 3.25% 'foreign body' in the adblue. I have not run the engine since this faux pas.
My question is what should I do? Will the screen wash and/or water do any harm if I leave it? Should I fill up with adblue to fill the tank? (therefore diluting the polutant). Should I have the adblue tank drained?
I asked the guy at my local garage what he suggested and he thought it should be OK just to fill up with adblue.
As an aside I always thought that adblue was a constant drip feed in to the fuel system but he told me that was not the case and the adblue was added at certain intervals to clean the system out. One lives and learns.

[VIVA GT]

My gut instinct is to agree with your local garage. I've just checked and apparently AdBlue is made up of 67.5% (Deionised) water anyway, so the additional water shouldn't create any problems. Unfortunately I don't know what effect the screenwash additive will have on the system. The system uses a high pressure pump (generally at about 75 psi pressure) to feed to an injector which (under certain conditions) opens to spray AdBlue into the exhaust system and onto the diesel particulate filter. I don't think that the small quantities of alcohol in the additive (that is used to stop the screenwash from freezing) would cause any issues, despite the high temperatures in the exhaust end of the system, nor would I expect the low quantities of detergent to do any harm if it is so heavily diluted.
Draining & refilling the system afresh would be the safest bet I suppose, but you're then hit with the problem of disposing of the old liquid, as AdBlue is considered as hazardous and must be disposed of properly.

[morninggents]

Thanks, Viv. I know adblue is a mix of deionised water and urea but was unsure of how the urea would react with the ethanol/other ingredients in the screen wash.
My gut feel also was to top up the adblue and keep my fingers crossed.

[Gerard C]

May be it will clean the windscreen of any car following you under hard acceleration.

[GORDON STREETER]

Peter, what vehicle have you put it in ? can you get some of it out with a suction pump ? What can (and does happen sometimes) is that it can put a warning light on to say that there is a malfunction of the adblue system and it could go into slo-mo !However if you can get most of it out and then refill it you will probably be OK

[bauble]

[QUOTE...... you will probably be OK][/QUOTE]

[GreenMachine]

Guy I know borrowed a car that needed adblue, but (he claims) was not told this. The bill had four zeros to the left of the decimal point, and the first number was higher than 1.

YMMV

[morninggents]

Greenmachine. I thought car engines could not run when adblue ran out.

Hi Gordon. I don't have a suction pump. The car is a Jaguar XF (2 litre diesel, so maybe same as Ford?). I may get the local garage guy to drain the tank to be safe.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by morninggents

Greenmachine. I thought car engines could not run when adblue ran out.

Hi Gordon. I don't have a suction pump. The car is a Jaguar XF (2 litre diesel, so maybe same as Ford?). I may get the local garage guy to drain the tank to be safe.

Peter, you can buy a drill attachment pump from various places for less than a tenner.

[GreenMachine]

Originally Posted by morninggents

Greenmachine. I thought car engines could not run when adblue ran out.

I am not a diesel user/driver/owner/drinker, so I know not whether that is now the case, but this was a highish end suv thingy, it probably happened 5 or 6 years ago, and the car was probably on a three year lease (that used to be the norm here), so the car would be around 2015-2019 vintage.

I was told that it has suffered catastrophic engine damage (my words/interpretation) but it was a sensitive subject (surprise!), so I did not do my usual close questioning of my friend, choosing to retain him as a friend!!

[Paul D]

I'm no expert on modern diesels, or any diesels, come to think of it - but my understanding of adblue is that it's injected after the engine, into the exhaust, to clean up emissions. I also understand that there's a sensor in the tank to tell the ECU when the tank's empty, and the car will not start at that point.

So, based on both of the above facts (if, indeed, they are facts), it's hard to see how one could do any serious damage to an engine by not having any. I'd go as far as to say it's hard to see how any damage whatsoever could occur if the statements above are correct?

Hoping for enlightenment!

[morninggents]

Thanks for all your feedback. I checked the car dash display that told me it needed 9 litres of adblue so it must have had 7 litres in when I cocked up, so the contamination is probably nearer 5% than the just over 3 % I first thought. Checking the car handbook regarding adblue it only warns that putting anything else in the adblue tank could be a criminal offence in some places which I have assumed means if you just put water in (for economic reasons!) you may fall foul of the law. There was no mention whatever of the possibility of causing damage by contaminating the mixture.
I also spoke to my local garage man again to ask if he had a suction pump to take out the contaminated mix but he advised against it as he says the tanks have quite sensitive sensors which can be damaged by inserting tubes, etc in to the tank. He also said he had worked on a Land Rover which had a damaged system owing to being overfilled. My handbook also warned against overfilling.
So, on balance, I think I will top up the adblue and see what happens. Unfortunately I can't drive at the moment so it could be a few weeks before I can take the car for a run.

[morninggents]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Peter, you can buy a drill attachment pump from various places for less than a tenner.

Hi Mike. I had one of those several years ago which I screwed on to a piece of wood to make it more stable. When I started the drill up the whole contraption danced around like crazy. Never tried again.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

May be it will clean the windscreen of any car following you under hard acceleration.

That sort of reminds me of someone I knew slightly (through kid's school) about 30 years ago.

An interesting and talented chap. He was a fireman.

His passion was an old Austin 7. Being an ancient car it was not quick and he got really annoyed when modern vehicles followed very closely.

So he rigged up a small hand pump, a bottle of oil and a pipe that ejected the oil through (or beside) the exhaust pipe. Anyone following too closely got a squirt of oil.

Eventually someone got annoyed and reported him. He was prosecuted and, as I recall, fined a rather excessive amount for the minor transgression. I don't recall which law he was deemed to have broken.

[grantp]

Ad-Blu is a pain.
When my eldest daughter had a diesel Volvo she parked outside one day, 2 wheels on the pavement, and happened to mention that the Ad-blue light had just come on, which meant she needed to replenish in the next 800 miles or something. She was wondering where might be best to get some locally.

Anyway, 2 hours later she set off to leave and the car would not start. The tilt from the kerb led to the sensor believing the vehicle was out of Ad-blu. So I went to the local supermarket and picked up 5ltrs (as I recall) and we put it in the tank. It still wouldn't start. It seemed to need to know that a significant amount of fluid had been added and the combination of the slope and 5ltrs was insufficient. Or it needed some further reset action that we were unaware of.

I can't recall what we did in the end but finally got it going and off she went.

[morninggents]

I have now done just over 500 miles since I replenished the adblue tank with 4 litres of adblue as I didn't want to overfill as Grant and my local garage man had advised. Pleased to report the car is running fine assuming that 500 miles has seen a few squirts of the stuff in to the exhaust.