Crossroads: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that's where you start if AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble starts once it is sucked through the pump — it will not ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally emptied and carefully rinsed where the vehicle stands in Crossroads. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Crossroads, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do right away
Do these:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take your keys out.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Hold on to the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Ring right where you are. Say a KA1 5 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to shift the vehicle.
- Many diesels run their fuel pump the moment your ignition comes on, so keep the car off.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Don't drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch up A719.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the verge.
Moving your car off the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Crossroads forecourt you're on, the the nearest petrol station included. Stopped on your own driveway? Then it stays exactly as it is.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. Denser than diesel, it drops and collects underneath it — the same place the intake draws from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Galston last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. It attacks some metals found in fuel systems, working on any part it touches till it is removed completely. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that clog filters and lodge in narrow channels. By daybreak, a car sitting around Crossroads with AdBlue in its lines grows worse; where it's just in that tank, nothing changes. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water part harms them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have a problem of thin fuel. Blended into your diesel and sitting unused, it is no threat at that stage; using your engine does the harm.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is plainly the wrong one. It cannot just be run through, because it doesn't burn. Deposits and corrosion remain after the next fill, and AdBlue splits back out of your diesel, so watering it can't help. Hence the flush matters so much, and turning your key "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Sornhill or the heart of Crossroads equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest part on any fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in it — anywhere around East Ayrshire your car sits.
Crossroads: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — can look the same. Nobody intends it; plenty of layouts allow it. Most of the time it occurs 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. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside the local primary school. Close to Crossroads Roundabout, someone pours a container in at home after work. Otherwise, in dim light outside the pub in the village, the vehicle is refilled by someone opening that flap the first time.
The least known cars get it the most — rentals, new ones, company cars, and the other motor of a family with one of each fuels. An identical mistake, an identical first step — keep it switched off — wherever you are around Crossroads or the remainder of East Ayrshire.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Crossroads?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. It has been sucked through the fuel filter and the fuel lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors.
Maybe coming back from Carnell Estate, or midway across Crossroads, the engine may go rough, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M77, under 10 miles from Crossroads, at the first junction and stop safely, rather than driving on.
Mileage counts: each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system, and so driving for Glasgow, under 25 miles away, makes a much larger job than hopping across Crossroads to the car park by Blair Park. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has ended up, and once the motor has been started there is more of it. Noticed soon, it very seldom leaves long-term damage.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Crossroads
A road beside Hurlford Community Library, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever your car has stopped in Crossroads, our technicians come to it. The work depends on three answers, and our technicians ask for before all else — what was put in, the quantity, and whether your engine has turned over.
On the spot, your tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. Residue from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than with petrol. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If your motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once our technicians are there. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a live forecourt is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Finally, the system is primed with fresh diesel. Starting the car comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, by Kilmarnock or on a driveway in Crossroads. The test before our engineers head off is that it runs correctly on new diesel. No garage is needed at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Crossroads itself
Crossroads is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in East Ayrshire, with a relatively low elevation of 57 metres. Crossroads is located near the communities of Hurlford, Bellfield, and Crookedholm, and is approximately 21 miles from Glasgow. Crossroads has a population of around 535 people, and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Crossroads is also a significant distance from London, at around 332 miles away.
AdBlue drains across East Ayrshire, Crossroads included
The vans that answer AdBlue calls around Crossroads also cover the locations around it, Hurlford, Bellfield and Crookedholm among them, and most of East Ayrshire beyond, across the KA postcode area. Guessing won't help by a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and check.
Crossroads is a rural hamlet, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
Crossroads: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Since each callouts vary, a single figure wouldn't be honest. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight spot behind Propeller.
Before any figure, not after, each enquiry from Crossroads begins with three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus if the engine ran. Given those replies, a range narrows to a single fixed number.
Before a van heads out, you are told our price on the phone. Then you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. While our engineer is on the way, dig out your insurance: plenty include misfuelling.
Still beside the car around Crossroads?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Crossroads or anywhere within East Ayrshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran.