East Brora: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has got into your diesel tank, keep your engine off then keep the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. The trouble starts once it's pulled through your lines — it won't burn, and it will not combine with diesel. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully cleaned where your car sits in East Brora. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in East Brora: the first few minutes
Do these:
- So nobody can switch the ignition on, take your keys out.
- Put the hazard lights on if you are at all close to moving traffic.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting KW9 6, or simply the name of a street close by, so phone from the car.
Don't do these:
- No starting your motor — not for a second, not to shift the car.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets your pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Even a short stretch down Academy Street is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Don't try to drain it yourself at the roadside.
The attendants on duty at any East Brora forecourt — the Gulf among them — will normally lend a hand pushing it clear if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the engine but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate reservoir it is fed straight to the exhaust, cleaning what the engine emits. A fuel pump is not designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to go through one.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. A car filled on a drive in Ardachew overnight and left unstarted is the straightforward case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though when your engine runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of the tank.
Two kinds of damage follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it leaves urea that hardens in filters and tiny channels; meanwhile, since it attacks some metals, every part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains in there. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car sitting around East Brora. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger issue?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Gleaner and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is in that tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the following fill, and AdBlue splits back out of the diesel, and so watering it won't help. That is why the flush counts so much, and trying your engine "to see" costs more here than almost any other slip — in Clynelish or the centre of East Brora equally.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits only inside the tank, the simplest section of the entire system to clear, wherever your car has stopped across Highland.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around East Brora: how it ends up there
Plenty of vehicles put the AdBlue cap beside the diesel cap, now and then behind one flap, and in dim light the two can appear the same. Nobody intends it. Mostly it's not the filling station: someone buys a bottle heading home and tips it in at home.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. The refill is hurried outside the local primary school, because the dash flashed with a warning while the children were taken off. Someone pours the bottle in at home, right off Stafford Terrace, as the day ends. Another pattern: dim light, the car park by the pub in the village, and someone using that flap the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're around East Brora or the remainder of Highland, it's the same error and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank in East Brora?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer inside that tank. It has been drawn through your filter and the lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any might appear, maybe midway across East Brora or returning from Brora Golf Club. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M90, over 50 miles from East Brora, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Hopping across East Brora to the car park by Clyne War Memorial is one thing; heading for Inverness, under 50 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once the engine has run, and our engineers do all of it where your car has ended up. Caught quickly, it very seldom leaves lasting damage.
East Brora: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A road beside Jubilee Fountain, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: wherever the vehicle has come to rest around East Brora, our technicians travel to it. Three replies shape the work, and so first we ask what got in, roughly what quantity, plus whether the engine has turned over.
Then the tank is cleared where your car waits, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. What remains from AdBlue will not wash away unaided, so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more here than with petrol. A test of your vehicle follows at the end, once clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets cleaned or, if needed, swapped. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers get there, provided your motor hasn't run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to prime the system on fresh diesel. Then we start it and you head off, whether from a parking space at Brora or a driveway around East Brora. Before we go, we confirm it's running properly with new diesel in. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours once this job is done.
About East Brora itself
East Brora is a small suburban area situated on the eastern coast of the Scottish Highlands, near the town of Brora. East Brora lies at an elevation of 18 metres, looking out over the Moray Firth, and is part of a larger residential community that includes nearby Ladiesloch and Lower Brora. East Brora is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock and is located approximately 39 miles from the city of Inverness. East Brora is also relatively distant from major urban centres, with London being around 473 miles to the south.
AdBlue drains around East Brora and across Highland
Over the KW postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in East Brora serve much of Highland as well, Ladiesloch, Brora and Lower Brora among them. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
A van that comes to you fits East Brora, a residential suburb: there's no need to take your car to us, since we drain it there, in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around East Brora: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the car, since an open drive is easier for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Scout Hall.
That's why every call from East Brora starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and whether it has run. Given those replies, a range shrinks to one firm number.
Before anyone heads out, you are told the price on the phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your policy whilst we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Beside the vehicle around East Brora, still?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the best move you can do. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in East Brora or anywhere around Highland.