AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dowanhill? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens until your motor pulls it through. In Dowanhill, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the engine runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Dowanhill
Things to do:
- Take your keys out, so no one switches your ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere close.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and about how much.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting G12 9, or just the name of a street nearby, so phone from the spot.
Don't do these:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to shift the car.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out instead of blending.
- Keep the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way along Highburgh Road.
- Don't try to drain it yourself by the kerbside.
Rolling your vehicle away from the island is a job for staff to help with, whichever Dowanhill forecourt you're on, the BP included. At home, the car remains exactly as it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the motor. From a separate reservoir it is fed straight to the exhaust, cleaning what your engine emits. A fuel pump is not designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. It sinks, since it's denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits beneath the diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Hillhead yesterday and not switched on stays the simple case, provided nobody turns the key.
Once it's pulled in, the harm comes in two forms. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps working on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue has reached the pipework, leaving it overnight around Dowanhill makes things worse. In the tank alone, waiting costs nothing. The water in it causes damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more serious than petrol
A fault of thinned fuel is what you get after filling a diesel with petrol at the Esso. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is in the tank it does no harm; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It doesn't burn, so it can't simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion remain through the following fill, and AdBlue separates again out of your diesel, so thinning it can't work. Hence the flush counts more, and turning the key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip — in Kelvinside or the heart of Dowanhill alike.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits only in your tank, the easiest section of the entire system to empty, wherever the car has come to rest around Glasgow City.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Dowanhill?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles waits right next to the diesel filler, at times under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It usually occurs outside the house, from a container bought on the journey home, rather than at the forecourt.
Mostly, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the vehicle. After work, a bottle goes in on a driveway close to Havelock Street. Otherwise, after dark outside Cottiers, your vehicle is refilled by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up the most in a hire car, a brand-new vehicle, a company vehicle, or the spare car of a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles drivers use least. Leave it off: that's the first response to the same mistake, anywhere around Dowanhill or the remainder of Glasgow City you happen to be.
Dowanhill: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. Via the filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
Expect rough running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Dowanhill Park, perhaps, or part way across Dowanhill. Stop when it is safe. Turn off. Keep the car off rather than testing it again. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
On the M8, under 3 miles from Dowanhill, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
Hopping across Dowanhill to the car park by Partick Trinity Parish Church is one matter; driving for Glasgow, under 3 miles away, is something else, because every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to rinse out once the engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the vehicle has ended up. Permanent damage is very uncommon when it's spotted soon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Dowanhill: what it takes
The vehicle remains put, whether that's a street near Dowanhill Tennis Club, a driveway, a layby or a forecourt in Dowanhill, and the van comes to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if your engine has run, because those replies determine the work.
Right there, the tank is then drained, and all of the polluted diesel and the urea come out at once. A full flush matters much more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue won't wash away by itself. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is usual for most jobs where the motor has not run. Our equipment is explosion-proof, so a live filling station is no fault, and it is hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the fuel system with fresh diesel comes at the end. Whether it is a parking bay at Partick or a driveway in Dowanhill, that is where our engineers start the car and you set off. It is checked on new diesel to make sure it runs smoothly before we go. Because the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. At the end, there is paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Dowanhill
Dowanhill is a suburban area in Glasgow City, situated near the River Kelvin and close to the neighbouring districts of Partickhill and Hyndland. Dowanhill lies approximately 2.5 miles west of Glasgow city centre, at an elevation of around 26 metres above sea level. Dowanhill is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing stock, which reflects the area's urban setting. Dowanhill is also relatively populous, with a population of around 17,516 people.
AdBlue drains across Dowanhill and Glasgow City
Over the G postcode area, the vans taking AdBlue call-outs around Dowanhill serve much of Glasgow City as well, Partickhill, Partick and Hyndland among them. Guessing won't help close to a border or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
No towing is needed. In Dowanhill, a residential suburb, a mobile service works: the car is drained where it stands, whether in a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Dowanhill
There is no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. Three things move the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether our van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Cottiers Theatre.
That is why each call from Dowanhill starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and whether it has run. When they are known, a range becomes one firm number.
Priced by phone before the van sets out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
Dowanhill: still alongside the car?
Not touching your car is, right now, the best move you can do. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Dowanhill or wherever in Glasgow City.