Broomhouse: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and the ignition too. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm starts until your motor sucks it through. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Broomhouse, is generally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before the motor has run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps straight away, Broomhouse: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Pocket your keys, and that stops someone turning the electrics on.
- If you are anywhere close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the amount, and so do not bin it away.
- The van finds you quickest with a postcode starting EH11 3, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the car.
Not to do:
- Don't start the engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Adding more diesel does not work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch down Broomhouse Terrace.
- Emptying your tank on your own by the road is not worth trying.
The attendants working at any Broomhouse forecourt — the BP among them — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. If you're on your own drive, leave it precisely where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your engine. From a separate reservoir it is fed directly to the exhaust, treating what your motor emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, because it's heavier than diesel, and settles low where the pickup draws its supply from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Stenhouse yesterday and never switched on stays the simple one, provided no one touches your key.
Once it is pulled in, the damage comes in two forms. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, working on whatever it touches till it's removed completely. And once the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and settle in narrow passages. Pipes holding AdBlue spell damage overnight for a car parked around Broomhouse. Just in the tank, it stays stable. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing past them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more major than petrol
A problem of thinned fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Tesco. Harm just comes from running on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside that tank, it does none.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong substance. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the following tankful, and AdBlue splits again out of the diesel, and so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush matters more, and trying your engine "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Corstorphine or the centre of Broomhouse alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across City of Edinburgh your car is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Broomhouse: how it ends up there
Plenty of motors put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel cap, occasionally under one flap, and in dim light the two may look the same. No one intends it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways cover the majority of them. The refill is rushed outside the local primary school, because your dash lit up with a warning as the kids were dropped off. Someone tips the container in at home, right off Broomhouse Drive, as the day ends. Otherwise, after dark by The Terrace, the vehicle is topped up by a driver using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a rental, a new motor, a fleet vehicle, or the other car of a home with both fuels — the cars people use the least. Anywhere around City of Edinburgh, Broomhouse included, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first response: leave it switched off.
Broomhouse: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It's been drawn through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
You may see the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Whinhill Park or halfway across Broomhouse. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Every start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M8, under 3 miles from Broomhouse, at the next junction and park somewhere safe, not driving on.
Mileage matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into the system, and so driving towards Edinburgh, under 5 miles away, gives a much bigger job than crossing Broomhouse to the car park by Broomhouse Mosque. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after your engine has been started. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
Broomhouse: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
A street by Saint Joseph's, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere the vehicle has come to rest in Broomhouse, our engineers come to it. Three replies shape the work, so first we ask what was put in, roughly the amount, plus if the motor has turned over.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out as one. Residue from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters far more with urea than for petrol. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we arrive. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. Then our engineers fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking space outside South Gyle or a driveway around Broomhouse. The test before we leave is that it runs correctly on clean diesel. No workshop is required at any stage, with the entire job done then and there. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About Broomhouse itself
Broomhouse is a suburban area located in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 3.7 miles from Edinburgh city centre. Broomhouse sits at an elevation of around 50 metres, in a relatively flat area of the city's western outskirts. Broomhouse is characterised by its predominant housing type, which is mainly flat, and is close to nearby places such as Carrick Knowe and Saughton. Broomhouse has a population of around 8794 people, according to approximate estimates.
AdBlue drains in Broomhouse and across City of Edinburgh
AdBlue call-outs in Broomhouse go to teams that serve the places around it — Carrick Knowe, Saughton as well as Parkhead — and most of City of Edinburgh further out, across EH postcodes. Phone and ask instead of guessing when you are close to a border, or anywhere awkward to explain.
A van that comes to you fits Broomhouse, a residential suburb: there's no need to take your car to us, because we empty it there, in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Broomhouse: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No single price could be fair, because every job differs. What moves the cost is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Carrick Knowe Parish Church.
What went in, how much, plus if the engine ran: every Broomhouse enquiry opens by asking precisely that, before a quote, never afterwards. With them, a range narrows to a single fixed figure.
You hear that price by phone, before anybody sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Broomhouse: still beside your car?
Not touching the car is, right now, the best thing open to you. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, and whether it ran is everything we ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout City of Edinburgh, Broomhouse too.