AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Auchterarder? Don't Start It
Engine off, ignition off: that's how you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens till your motor sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Auchterarder, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before your motor has run. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Auchterarder: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Things to do:
- Keys out — then nobody can power anything on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, so do not bin it away.
- Call just where you are. Quote a PH3 1 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Do not do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift your car: your engine remains off.
- Plenty of diesels run their fuel pump the moment the ignition comes on, and so leave it off.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short stretch along New School Lane is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the roadside.
The staff on duty at any Auchterarder forecourt — the Shell among them — will normally help pushing it clear if you ask. On that drive, the car stays exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to your exhaust, treating what your motor emits. Neither side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't take urea.
It doesn't blend. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. A car filled on a drive in Tullibardine yesterday evening and not started since counts as the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though when your engine runs, that is what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
From there it does two kinds of harm. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps running on the components it reaches for as long as it remains there. A car left sitting around Auchterarder with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank isn't. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, and that is a separate form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more major than petrol
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the another forecourt nearby, and this problem is diluted fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it causes none.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. Not burning, it cannot just be run through. Nor can it be watered down, since it splits back out — and the next tankful will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more here, and turning the key "to see", in the heart of Auchterarder or out in Aberuthven, does more harm than almost any other error.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue sits only in your tank, the simplest bit of the whole system to clear, anywhere the vehicle has stopped across Perth and Kinross.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Auchterarder: how it ends up there
In dim light, two caps side by side — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap — may appear the same. Nobody means it; plenty of layouts allow it. A bottle picked up while driving home and poured in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical route.
A couple of familiar ways account for most cases. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning light came on during the school run, a parent refills your car. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Strathearn Court. One more version: darkness, a pub car park outside The Niblick, and a driver using that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a new vehicle, a fleet motor, or the other vehicle in a home with one of each fuels — the vehicles drivers know least. Wherever around Perth and Kinross, Auchterarder as well, the slip does not change, and nor does the first response: keep it off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Auchterarder?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. Via the filter, along the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's how far it has gone.
You may notice the engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from TSCoA astro-turf or halfway across Auchterarder. When you safely can, stop and turn it off — without turning it on again to see. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
If you were on the M90, under 15 miles from Auchterarder, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
A quick hop across Auchterarder to the car park by WW2 War Memorial Gateway is one thing; heading towards Perth, under 15 miles away, is another, because every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance counts. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has come to a stop. Long-term damage is very rare when it's noticed quickly.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in Auchterarder: what it takes
Anywhere it has stopped around Auchterarder — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road beside Auchterarder Library — the van travels to your vehicle. What went in, roughly how much, and whether your motor has turned over: our technicians check before all else, because those decide the job.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one when the tank is emptied, right there. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is cleaned all the way through because residue will not flush away by itself. After that, the fuel filter: cleaned, or changed when it must be. After that clean diesel, then a test of the car. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The final step is to bleed the system on new diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, at Gleneagles or on a driveway in Auchterarder. The check before we go is that it runs properly on clean diesel. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. The insurer will want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Auchterarder and where it is
Auchterarder is a town situated in the county of Perth and Kinross, Scotland, with a riverside setting and an elevation of 108 metres. Auchterarder lies near the cities of Perth and the surrounding villages of Milton, Castleton, and Muirton. Auchterarder has a population of approximately 5456 people and predominantly features detached housing. Auchterarder is located 12.3 miles from Perth and 361.4 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Perth and Kinross, Auchterarder included
The vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Auchterarder also cover the spots about it, Milton, Castleton and Muirton among them, and most of Perth and Kinross beyond, across the PH postcode area. Ring and check instead of guessing if you're close to a county line, or somewhere awkward to pin down.
Auchterarder is a riverside town, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Auchterarder?
Since the callouts differ, a single figure wouldn't be honest. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that went in. After that it rests on where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind WW1 War Memorial.
What got in, how much, and whether the engine ran: every Auchterarder call begins with exactly those, ahead of any figure, never afterwards. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still next to your car around Auchterarder?
Not touching the car is, then, the best thing you can do. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Auchterarder or anywhere in Perth and Kinross.