Screen wash in the AdBlue tank in Passage West: why it is so common
Passage West, screen wash in the AdBlue tank: the engine stays off and the phone comes out. 01295 380724. Unstarted the contamination is confined to the AdBlue tank, which is the cheap place for it to be. The filler necks sit next to each other under the same flap, which is why this happens so often. Talking it through with one of our engine scientists, fuel-system engineers and misfuel specialists costs nothing, and the drain itself takes 45 to 90 minutes once someone is on site.
Our own units are UK-based, so in Passage West we take the consultation and put you straight through to a local drainer covering County Cork.
What is actually happening in the tank
Screen wash is water, alcohol, surfactant and dye. The AdBlue tank feeds an SCR dosing injector that expects 32.5% urea and nothing else.
Surfactant and alcohol contaminate the dosing pump and injector, the quality sensor reads the solution as out of spec, and the system logs a fault and begins the no-restart countdown.
Friday is the busiest day for callouts nationally, 29 per cent above Sunday, and May and August are the peak months. If it has happened to you in Passage West on a Friday in August, you are in the most ordinary bracket there is.
Screen wash in the AdBlue tank in passage west: the worst case
Replacement AdBlue tank, pump and dosing injector, which on many vehicles is a four-figure bill.
Passage West: the practical detail
Passage West sits in County Cork, and a unit attends the whole of it. If you are closer to Cork, Carrigaline, Cobh or Midleton, the same applies: the vehicle is not moved, the technician travels. The pickup point is wherever the vehicle already is, including a hard shoulder, a driveway or a multi-storey.
| Contamination | Screen wash into the AdBlue tank |
|---|---|
| Area | Passage West |
| County | County Cork |
| Risk if the engine has run | Severe |
| Consultation | Free of charge, no obligation |
| Time on site | 1-3 hours |
| Attendance | Local partner drainer, via our operator |
| Helpline | 01295 380724 |
Passage West is in the Republic of Ireland, and our own drainage units are UK-based. What we do here is put you straight through to a local drainer covering County Cork, so you are not ringing round a search page while the vehicle sits on a forecourt.
The consultation is the same and it is still free. Tell us what went in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has run, and one of our engine scientists, fuel-system engineers and misfuel specialists will establish what is exposed before anyone is dispatched. The mechanism does not change at the Irish Sea: a high-pressure pump fails on petrol in Cork exactly as it does in Cardiff.
How it shows itself
An AdBlue quality fault, an emissions warning and the no-restart countdown. The dye is often the giveaway when the tank is opened.
The work itself
The AdBlue tank is drained and flushed, the dosing line checked for surfactant residue, and the system refilled with correct-specification fluid and reset.
What a technician brings depends on what you tell the operator, which is why the description matters more than the postcode.
What has happened so far?
Pick the one that fits. It is the only question that changes the answer.
- TankThe wrong fuel is sitting still. Nothing downstream has touched it.
- Lift pumpTurning the key runs the in-tank pump, and the contamination starts moving.
- FilterThe filter takes the first hit and is replaced either way.
- High-pressure pumpLubrication fails here first. This is the component that turns a drain into a rebuild.
- Injectors and railDebris from the pump arrives here. At this point the fuel system is replaced, not cleaned.
Fuel Fixer, the company behind UK Wrong Fuel Repository, holds a rating of 4.8 out of 5 from 2,190 reviews on Trustpilot, on a profile claimed since 2017.
Across recent reviews, the themes customers raise most often are staff who stay polite, professional and reassuring during what is a stressful situation, and how quickly a technician arrives and gets the vehicle back on the road in Passage West.
The most common criticism is price. Some customers have felt the cost of an emergency drain was steep for a job that takes under two hours, and that is fair comment on an emergency call-out. It is why the misfuel call-out fee is free and why published repair figures span two orders of magnitude before a technician sets off — so nothing about the cost is a surprise at the roadside.
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A misfuel is a good moment to get the filters and the rest of the car looked at — Motor Servicing comes to your home or workplace.
Background reading: Common rail injection (Wikipedia). Service operated by Fuel Fixer, alongside Misfuel Doctor, Fuel Fixer Scotland and Motor Servicing.