AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Broughton? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then keep the engine off — and your ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The harm starts once it is sucked through your lines — it won't ignite, and it won't combine with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully purged where the vehicle stands around Broughton. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Broughton: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do:
- Pocket your keys, and that stops anyone switching the electrics on.
- Put the hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Which fluid, and roughly what quantity? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and our technicians will see.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting EH7 4, or the name of the nearest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Do not:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition the vehicle.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't weaken it.
- Any driving at all is to be avoided, including a short way up East Claremont Street.
- Do not try to drain it yourself by the roadside.
Get the people behind the counter to help you move your vehicle away from the pumps if you're at a forecourt around Broughton, whether it is the BP or elsewhere. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. From a dedicated tank it goes straight to your exhaust, cleaning what the motor emits. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after poured in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the very spot the intake sucks from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Greenside 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 sucked it in.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. 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 working on the components it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a vehicle parked around Broughton with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it's just in that tank, nothing changes. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel running past them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. Mixed through the diesel and sitting unused, it is no threat for now; using the engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following tankful, and AdBlue splits back from the diesel, and so watering it can't help. Hence the flush matters more, and turning the key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip — in Hillside or the centre of Broughton equally.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on a fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in there — wherever across City of Edinburgh your vehicle sits.
Broughton: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It's not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. A bottle picked up while heading home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the filling station, is the typical story.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside the local primary school the top-up is hurried. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off West Annandale Street. Else, in dim light outside Powder Room, your car is refilled by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it switched off: that is the first step to the same mistake, anywhere in Broughton or the rest of City of Edinburgh you happen to be.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Broughton, and the motor started?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It has been pulled through the fuel filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Perhaps returning from Claremont Crescent Gardens, or part way across Broughton, the motor may go rough, smoke, drop pace, light up the dash or cut out. No restarting to test: stop once safe, then switch it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M8, under 10 miles from Broughton, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Distance matters: every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in, and so heading for Edinburgh, under a mile away, gives a much larger job than crossing Broughton to the car park by Alien Bloc. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has ended up, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. When it's caught quickly, long-term damage is very uncommon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around Broughton: what it takes
Our technicians come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Broughton: a side street near Bridge Family Church and Community Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and if your engine has run, since those answers determine the work.
Next, emptying your tank right there removes the polluted diesel and the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because what remains won't flush away by itself. A test of your vehicle comes last, once fresh diesel goes in and the filter is flushed or, if necessary, swapped. About half an hour once we arrive is typical for most jobs where the engine has not run. Explosion-proof pumps mean a live forecourt sensible to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the street at night.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes last. Then we fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking bay by Edinburgh Waverley or a driveway in Broughton. It's tested on clean diesel to confirm it runs correctly before we go. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never has to be taken to a workshop. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come afterwards.
About Broughton itself
Broughton is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated near the coast and approximately 0.7 miles from Edinburgh city centre. Broughton sits at an elevation of 34 metres, with its predominant housing being flats. Broughton is close to nearby places such as Canonmills, Pilrig, and Bonnington, and is home to a population of around 14894 people.
AdBlue drains in Broughton and across City of Edinburgh
AdBlue jobs around Broughton are passed to vans that serve the towns near it — Canonmills, Pilrig as well as Bonnington — and much of City of Edinburgh further out, across EH postcodes. Guessing won't help by a border or anywhere tricky to pin down; ring and check.
No moving is needed. In Broughton, a residential suburb, a mobile service fits: the car is drained on the spot, whether in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Broughton: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Each job differs, so not one single quote is fair. What changes the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Powderhall Stables.
For that reason, every enquiry from Broughton opens by asking the same trio — which fluid got in, how much, whether it ran — ahead of any figure. Given those replies, the range shrinks to one fixed figure.
Quoted on the call before the van sets out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still beside the vehicle in Broughton?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best move you can do. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, across Broughton or wherever in City of Edinburgh.