Cherrybank: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing starts until the engine sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Cherrybank, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your engine has run. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank around Cherrybank
Do these:
- Pocket the keys, and that stops anyone turning the electrics on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the product and the amount, and so don't bin it away.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting PH1 1, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Do not do these:
- Shifting your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets the pump going on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short way down Viewlands Road.
- Draining that tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
Get the attendants to help you move the vehicle away from the island if you're at a forecourt around Cherrybank, whether it is the Morrisons or somewhere else. On your own drive, don't move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sprayed into your exhaust, where it treats the gas. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Poured in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than blending — entirely unlike fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the very place the pickup draws from. Easiest of all: one that got AdBlue in Burghmuir overnight and hasn't been started since. The AdBlue waits at the base of your tank, undrawn — but it would be the first thing through if your engine starts, before any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of harm. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. A motor left sitting in Cherrybank 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 gives none of that, which is a second kind of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more serious than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on BP's forecourt leaves the fuel watery — that is the whole fault. Mixed through your diesel and left unused, it's harmless for now; using your motor does the damage.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. It can't just be run through, because it does not burn. Whether the vehicle sits in Letham or the centre of Cherrybank, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush matters for more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so diluting it is impossible; and deposits and corrosion outlast the following fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Anywhere around Perth and Kinross your vehicle has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Cherrybank?
It is not deliberate. Many cars have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is rushed outside the local primary school, after your dash flashed with a warning while the kids were dropped off. Close to Hamilton Lane, someone tips a container in on that drive after work. Or the car is topped up in the car park at Ghlas Bar, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
Rented motors, new vehicles, fleet vehicles, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each: the least known vehicles see it most. Wherever you're in Cherrybank or the rest of Perth and Kinross, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Cherrybank: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. The filter and lines have had it pulled through, and any running time takes it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Expect rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from Duncan Woods, say, or part way across Cherrybank. Stop when safe. Turn off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M90, under a mile from Cherrybank, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Cherrybank to the car park by Pitheavlis Castle is a very different job from a run towards Perth, under a mile away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with every mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
Our engineers do all of the flushing where your car has ended up, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. If it is noticed soon, permanent damage is very rare.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Cherrybank
A road beside Gillingham Library, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: wherever your vehicle has stopped around Cherrybank, we travel to it. Three replies decide the job, so before anything else we ask what got in, roughly what quantity, and if the engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out together when your tank is drained, right there. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the whole system is cleaned all the way through since what remains will not flush away by itself. Clean diesel goes in after your filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we turn up, if your engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the final step. Whether it's a parking space outside Perth or a drive in Cherrybank, that is where we start the engine and you drive off. We check it runs smoothly on new diesel before we go. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Cherrybank, for a moment
Cherrybank is a suburban area located on the riverside in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Cherrybank sits at an elevation of 49 metres, close to the city of Perth, which is approximately 0.6 miles away. Cherrybank is part of the wider Perth urban area, which includes nearby places such as Craigie and Woodlands. Cherrybank has a population of around 4166 people, according to recent estimates.
Cherrybank and Perth and Kinross: AdBlue drains across the area
AdBlue jobs in Cherrybank are passed to vans that serve the towns near it — Craigie, Woodlands as well as Perth — and most of Perth and Kinross further out, across PH postcodes. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Cherrybank is a residential suburb, and an on-site drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Cherrybank: the cost of fixing it
Every job is different, and so no fixed price is honest. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind The LORD helped us..
For that reason, every call from Cherrybank begins by asking the same trio — which fluid went in, what quantity, whether it ran — before any quote. Given those replies, a range narrows to a single firm number.
Our quote is given during the call, before anyone sets off; payment comes on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, check your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Still beside your car around Cherrybank?
Not touching your car is, right now, the most useful thing open to you. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Cherrybank or anywhere around Perth and Kinross.