Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Burnside
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave the motor off and leave your ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when your fuel system draws it in. In Burnside, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Your next steps right now, Burnside: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- Pull your keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and roughly what quantity? Save the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers will know.
- Give us a postcode starting G73 3, or whichever street is closest, and the van finds you straight — so call wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to reposition the vehicle.
- Your ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short distance up Stonelaw Road.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself by the kerbside.
On a forecourt in Burnside, whether it's the Esso or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. If you're on your own drive, leave it precisely where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. No part inside an injection pump is made for this liquid — and no part of it was meant to go that way.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate rather than blending — quite unlike fuel. Heavier than diesel, it sinks and collects underneath it — the same place the intake draws 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 Fernhill last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
Two kinds of damage come from there. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they settle in tiny channels and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it's cleared out. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting till morning around Burnside leaves it worse. In that tank only, time does nothing. Then there's the water: it offers no protection to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more serious than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have an issue of thin fuel. No harm comes while it sits put, blended into the diesel — only once the engine works on it.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely wrong liquid. Because it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. It does not stay mixed, and so it can't be diluted. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in Springhall or the middle of Burnside.
As with petrol, there's good news. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside that tank, and the tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across South Lanarkshire the vehicle is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Burnside
It is not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
The ways it takes place are few and familiar. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the car. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway near Highburgh Drive. Else, in dim light by Auld Cathkin, your vehicle is refilled by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It happens most in the motors people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Anywhere across South Lanarkshire, Burnside as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it off.
Burnside: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. It has been sucked through the fuel filter and the lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Woodburn Park, or midway across Burnside, your motor may go rough, smoke, lose power, flash the dash or cut out. When you safely can, stop then switch it off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M74, under a mile from Burnside, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
Distance counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, and so driving towards Glasgow, under 5 miles away, makes a much larger job than crossing Burnside to the car park by Rutherglen Lawn Tennis Club. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
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 run. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is spotted soon.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Burnside
Our technicians come to your car, wherever it has stopped around Burnside: a side street near 113th Glasgow (Burnside) Scout Group, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three answers, which our technicians ask for before all else — which fluid was put in, the amount, and if your engine has turned over.
Then the tank is cleared where the vehicle sits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is flushed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If the engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
The final step is to prime the fuel system on clean diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, outside the nearest station or on a driveway around Burnside. We make sure it runs correctly on new diesel before we go. Because the job is done in full where your car is, a garage never comes into it. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Burnside itself
Burnside is a village situated on the banks of the River Clyde in South Lanarkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Burnside lies close to Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, and is connected to nearby neighbourhoods such as High Crosshill and High Burnside. Burnside has a relatively low elevation of around 45 metres above sea level, reflecting its riverside setting. Burnside is home to a population of approximately 2868 residents, living in a suburban environment near the city of Glasgow.
AdBlue drains across South Lanarkshire, Burnside included
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls around Burnside also cover the locations around it, High Crosshill, High Burnside and Gallowflat among them, and most of South Lanarkshire beyond, across the G postcode area. Near a boundary, or somewhere awkward to pin down? Checking is better than assuming, so phone.
Wherever your vehicle sits — your driveway at home, a side street, a car park, a filling station — we drain it there, with no need to bring it to us; which suits Burnside, a village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Burnside
Each job differs, so not one fixed price would be fair. The price shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that was put in. After that it depends on 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 Burnside Bowling Club.
Ahead of a quote, not after, each call from Burnside opens with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, and whether the engine ran. Their answers narrow a range down to one number.
Before a van heads out, you are told our quote on the phone. And you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your policy whilst we're on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Still beside the vehicle in Burnside?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the best move open to you. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Burnside or wherever within South Lanarkshire.