AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Auchendinny? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens until your engine pulls it round. In Auchendinny, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Before anything, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Auchendinny, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, pull the keys away.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put the hazard lights on.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about what quantity, keep the receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting EH26 0, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to shift your car.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to run your pump.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, so it is pointless.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short distance along Graham's Road.
- By the road, do not attempt draining it yourself.
Moving the car off the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Auchendinny forecourt you're on, the Tesco included. At your own driveway, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your engine. Stored in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. No part in a fuel pump is designed for this fluid — and none of it was intended to travel through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once poured in, won't. The behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the same spot the intake sucks from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Ladywood last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What is left when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it's flushed out. Lines carrying AdBlue spell harm by morning for a car parked in Auchendinny. Just inside your tank, it stays stable. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
A problem of thinned fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Asda. Damage just comes from driving on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside your tank, it causes nothing.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. It does not burn, and so it can't just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Mauricewood or the middle of Auchendinny.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Midlothian your car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Auchendinny
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it's not the filling station: someone buys a container driving home and tips it in at home.
Usually, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside the local primary school. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Old Dalmore Terrace. Or a driver unfamiliar with that flap tops up your vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park outside Fisher's Tryst.
It happens most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are in Auchendinny or the rest of Midlothian, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Auchendinny: started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. The filter and lines have had it sucked through, and some running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
You may notice your engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Glencorse Golf Club or halfway across Auchendinny. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M8, under 10 miles from Auchendinny, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
Mileage matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system, so driving for Edinburgh, under 10 miles away, makes a much larger job than hopping across Auchendinny to the car park by Sophia Inglis Memorial. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Once the motor has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has come to a stop. When it's spotted soon, lasting damage is very unusual.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Auchendinny
The car stays where it is, whether that is a road beside Oldwoodhouselee Castle, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt in Auchendinny, and our van comes to it. Before anything else we ask what got in, about how much, and whether the engine has run, because those answers settle the work.
Right there, that tank is then emptied, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea come out at once. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through since what remains won't wash away unaided. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where the engine hasn't run. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that is the last step. Whether it is a parking space at Newtongrange or a driveway around Auchendinny, that is where our engineers fire it up and you set off. It's tested on fresh diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our technicians head off. Our technicians do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to go to a workshop. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Auchendinny
Auchendinny is a village situated on the River North Esk in Midlothian, with a mix of housing types including a predominance of flats. Auchendinny lies close to the Pentland Hills, near the towns of Glencorse and Milton Bridge, and is connected to the nearby city of Edinburgh. Auchendinny has a population of around 892 residents and is located at an elevation of approximately 150 metres. Auchendinny is also near Beeslack, another local community in the area.
AdBlue drains across Midlothian, Auchendinny included
AdBlue call-outs around Auchendinny are passed to vans that cover the towns around it — Glencorse, Milton Bridge plus Beeslack — and most of Midlothian beyond, across EH postcodes. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A van that comes to you suits Auchendinny, a village: there's no need to bring your car to us, since we drain it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Auchendinny
No single figure could be fair, since each job differs. Three things move the cost: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where your car is. That last one rests on whether a van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight spot behind Glencorse Centre.
Before any quote, not afterwards, each enquiry from Auchendinny opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and if it ran. Once they are answered, a range turns into a single firm number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, the job is settled that day — card or phone, no deposit. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
Alongside the vehicle in Auchendinny, still?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Auchendinny or anywhere across Midlothian.