Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Deanburn
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then keep the motor off — and the ignition as well. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. The harm begins once it is pulled through the pump — it won't burn, and it will not blend with diesel. Caught before your motor has run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Deanburn. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Deanburn: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do these:
- So no one can switch your ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Near moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- So you can give us which liquid it was and roughly what quantity, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call right where you are. Say a EH26 0 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Things not to do:
- Moving the car just a few yards is no reason to fire up the engine.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets the pump running on many diesels. Skip it.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel won't weaken it.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Charles Street.
- Emptying your tank yourself by the road isn't one to try.
On a forecourt in Deanburn, whether it is the Tesco or another one, ask the staff to help you roll the car clear of the pump. Parked on your own driveway? Then it remains exactly where it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the gases. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It sinks, because it is heavier than diesel, and settles low where the pickup draws its supply from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it sits beneath your diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Eastfield last night and not switched on remains the straightforward case, provided nobody touches the key.
Once it's sucked in, the damage takes two forms. What remains when the water goes is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and clog filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in a fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. By daybreak, a car sitting around Deanburn with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it is only inside that tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water gives none of that, which is a second kind of harm.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Petrol put into a diesel on Asda's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that's the whole fault. Damage just comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside your tank, it causes none.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong liquid. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it can't be weakened. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Loanburn or the middle of Deanburn.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue waits just inside the tank, the easiest bit of the whole system to empty, wherever the car has stopped around Midlothian.
Deanburn: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many cars rests right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it is not the forecourt: a driver buys a bottle driving home and tips it in outside the house.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. The refill is hurried outside the local primary school, because your dash flashed with a warning while the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Scott Road. Else, after dark by The Cuiken Inn, the car is refilled by a driver opening that flap the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a fleet motor, or the other car of a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people use least. Keep it off: that's the first step to an identical mistake, wherever in Deanburn or the rest of Midlothian you happen to be.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Deanburn?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. The filter and lines have had it pulled through, and any running carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — returning from Cuiken Glen, perhaps, or midway across Deanburn. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart it to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M8, under 10 miles from Deanburn, at the first junction and stop somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Mileage matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, and so driving towards Edinburgh, under 10 miles away, gives a much larger job than crossing Deanburn to the car park by Mauricewood Colliery Disaster Memorial. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
There's more to flush once your engine has been started, and we do all of it where your car has come to a stop. Very rarely does it leave permanent damage when it is caught soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Deanburn?
A road by The Penicuik Centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever the vehicle has stopped around Deanburn, we travel to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether the engine has run, since those answers decide the work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one after the tank is emptied, right there. A full flush counts far more with AdBlue than after petrol, because what remains won't wash away on its own. Fresh diesel goes in once the filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
The last step is to bleed the system on new diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the car is parked, at Curriehill or on a drive around Deanburn. The test before our technicians head off is that it runs properly on new diesel. As the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. At the end, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer.
About Deanburn itself
Deanburn is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Midlothian, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 4570 residents. Deanburn sits at an elevation of 205 metres, close to the nearby places of Cuiken, Mauricewood, and Greenlaw Mains. Deanburn is located approximately 8.1 miles from Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, and is part of the wider Edinburgh urban area. Deanburn's riverside setting provides a scenic backdrop to the community.
AdBlue drains across Deanburn and Midlothian
Our teams that answer AdBlue call-outs in Deanburn also cover the places about it, Cuiken, Mauricewood and Greenlaw Mains among them, and most of Midlothian beyond, across the EH postcode area. Near a boundary, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking beats guessing, and so phone.
A van that comes to you suits Deanburn, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, because we empty it there, on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Deanburn?
Not one single price could be honest, since every job differs. The cost changes 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 rests on where the car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight space behind Ladywood Leisure Centre.
That is why each call from Deanburn starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it has run. The replies turn a range into a straight price.
Our quote is quoted during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up comes on the day, by card or over the phone, and nothing upfront. As the van is on the way, dig out your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
In Deanburn and still alongside the vehicle?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, right now, the best move you can do. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 and tell us it is AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Deanburn or anywhere in Midlothian.