Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Coldstream
Motor off, ignition off: that is how you begin if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. The trouble starts once it is sucked through your pump — it will not ignite, and it will not blend with diesel. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Coldstream. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Coldstream: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Call just where you are. Say a TD12 4 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: your motor remains off.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the moment the ignition comes on, and so leave the vehicle off.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it is wasted.
- Leave the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Victoria Street.
- Emptying your tank yourself beside the road is not worth trying.
Ask the attendants to help you move your car off the pumps if you are on a forecourt around Coldstream, whether it is the Esso or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Neither side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a drive in West Learmouth yesterday evening and left unstarted counts as the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up so far — though when your motor turns, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it strands urea that hardens in filters and narrow passages; and, since it attacks some metals, each part it touches keeps suffering for as long as it stays inside. If the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning around Coldstream leaves things worse. In your tank only, time does nothing. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel often the bigger issue?
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have an issue of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is inside the tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable liquid. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Whether your car is in East Learmouth or the centre of Coldstream, firing it up "to see" costs more in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, and so watering it down fails; and crystals and corrosion survive the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and the tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Scottish Borders the vehicle is sitting.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Coldstream: how it ends up there
Plenty of vehicles put the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, now and then under a single flap, and in dim light the two may look identical. Nobody means it. It usually occurs at home, from a container bought en route home, not at the filling station.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up occurs in a hurry outside the local primary school. Someone tips the container in outside their house, right off Nursery Lane, as the day ends. One more version: dim light, the car park by Besom Inn, and someone opening that flap the first time.
Hired vehicles, new cars, company vehicles, or the spare car in a home with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it the most. Same mistake, same first step — leave it switched off — anywhere you are around Coldstream or the remainder of Scottish Borders.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Coldstream?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. With any running, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, after passing through the filter and lines.
You may see the motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from Henderson Park or halfway across Coldstream. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Coldstream sits under 50 miles from the M8; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and stop somewhere safe rather than driving on.
Every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. That is why a hop across Coldstream to park near Coldstream Library and a drive of under 50 miles towards Edinburgh are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to clean out once your engine has been run, and our engineers do all of it where the car has stopped. Noticed soon, it very rarely leaves permanent damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Coldstream
Our engineers come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Coldstream: a side street near Home Memorial, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Before anything else we ask what was put in, about how much, and if your engine has run, because those answers determine this work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together when that tank is emptied, right there. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush matters: the whole system is flushed all the way through since what remains will not wash away by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Last, your system is primed with clean diesel. You set off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway in Coldstream or in a space by the nearest station. Our technicians confirm it runs correctly on fresh diesel before we leave. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers want.
About Coldstream itself
Coldstream is a small town situated on the north bank of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, with Lennel and Cornhill on Tweed nearby. Coldstream sits at a relatively low elevation of 29 metres above sea level, close to the English border and the town of Wark. Coldstream has a population of around 2088 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Coldstream is located 42 miles from Edinburgh and 299 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across Coldstream and Scottish Borders
Our vans that answer AdBlue calls in Coldstream also cover the places round it, Lennel, Cornhill on Tweed and Wark among them, and most of Scottish Borders beyond, across the TD postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
No towing is needed. In Coldstream, a riverside town, a mobile service fits: the vehicle is emptied on the spot, whether in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Coldstream: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs are not the same. What shifts the price is, first, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and finally where your car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Coldstream Parish Church.
For that in mind, every enquiry from Coldstream begins by asking the same trio — which fluid got in, how much, if the engine ran — before a quote. The replies turn a range into a straight price.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price by phone. Then payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Check your policy while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
In Coldstream and still beside the car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, in Coldstream or anywhere within Scottish Borders, after you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether it ran.