Aberdour: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Motor off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. Being water-based, it will not ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble only starts when your pump starts drawing it. If your motor hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully cleaned where the car stands around Aberdour. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Aberdour, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- Pull the keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- Keep your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and roughly how much.
- Call right where you are. Say a KY3 0 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Not to do:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to shift your vehicle.
- Do not switch the ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in extra diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch up High Street.
- By the road, do not try draining it on your own.
On a forecourt around Aberdour, whether it is the BP or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. Stopped on your own drive? Then it stays just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed directly to the exhaust, treating what the motor lets out. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Poured in with your diesel, it stays separate instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Kirkton last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What is left when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and block filters. Worse, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. Overnight, a vehicle parked in Aberdour with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it is just in your tank, nothing changes. Then there is the water: it brings no protection to the parts that need it most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the Thames and you have an issue of thin fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates again — and the next tankful won't clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Aberdour or out in Dalgety Bay, costs more than nearly any other slip.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits only in your tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere the car has come to rest in Fife.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Aberdour: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap — can look the same. Nobody means it; many layouts invite it. It mostly takes place at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, rather than at the filling station.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside the local primary school the refill is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Shore Road. Or your car is topped up in the car park at Foresters Arms, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
Rented motors, brand-new vehicles, company motors, or the second vehicle in a family with one of each: the least familiar cars get it the most. Wherever you're in Aberdour or the rest of Fife, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Aberdour, and the engine started?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Through the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
You may see the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from The Old School Sensory Garden or halfway across Aberdour. Stop when it is safe. Switch off. Keep the car off rather than restarting it to check. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
On the M90, under 5 miles from Aberdour, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Aberdour to the car park by War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Dunfermline, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to rinse out once your engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the car has ended up. Caught early, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
Aberdour: how AdBlue is emptied from a diesel
Wherever it has come to rest around Aberdour — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street by Lieutenant Colonel G C T Keyes Memorial — the van comes to the vehicle. Before anything else we ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether your motor has been run, since those replies determine this work.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. A careful flush matters far more with AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains will not wash away by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where your engine hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on clean diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where the car is parked, at the nearest station or on a drive in Aberdour. Before we leave, we make sure it's running smoothly with new diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Aberdour
Aberdour is a coastal village in Fife, situated on the north shore of the Firth of Forth at an elevation of 34 metres. Aberdour has a mix of old and new housing, with detached homes being the predominant type, and is close to the nearby settlements of Wester Aberdour and Easter Aberdour. Aberdour is located near the city of Dunfermline, which is 6.4 miles away, and is part of the wider Fife region. Aberdour has a population of around 1025 people and is a notable stopping point for those travelling between Edinburgh and other parts of Fife.
AdBlue drains across Fife, Aberdour included
Wester Aberdour, Easter Aberdour and Old Battery are among the towns around Aberdour that the same vans reach, together with much of Fife beyond, throughout the KY postcode area. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
A mobile service fits Aberdour, a coastal village: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, since our technicians drain it there, in a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Aberdour
Each job is different, so not one fixed price is fair. Three things shift the cost: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether our van can get to it safely, and an open driveway is easier than a tight space behind St Fillan's Church Hall.
That is why every call from Aberdour starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it has run. When those are answered, a range turns into one firm figure.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, the job is paid for on the day — card or phone, no deposit. While our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
In Aberdour and still alongside your car?
Then, do nothing — that's the most helpful move available. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Aberdour or wherever in Fife, once you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran.