Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ederney
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your engine off then leave your ignition off. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The harm begins once it is sucked through the lines — it won't burn, and it will not combine with diesel. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully flushed where the car sits around Ederney. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Ederney, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents someone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and roughly what quantity, save your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting BT93 0, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Never:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: the engine stays off.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant your ignition goes on, so leave the vehicle off.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Do not drive it anywhere, not even a short distance down Crown Street.
- By the road, do not try draining it on your own.
Moving the car off the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Ederney forecourt you're on, the the nearest petrol station included. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the gases. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is not at all like fuel's. It sinks, because it is heavier than diesel, and settles down where the pickup takes its supply from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits beneath your diesel, and that is why a car topped up in Irvinestown last night and not started stays the simple one, provided no one turns the key.
It causes two kinds of harm from there. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. On top of that, it attacks some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is flushed out. Where the AdBlue has reached the lines, leaving it till morning around Ederney makes it worse. In your tank alone, time does nothing. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and your injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it is in that tank it causes no damage; the harm comes from running the motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid itself is plainly the wrong one. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle is in Tullyhommon or the centre of Ederney, firing it up "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush counts more. The reasons: it won't stay blended, and so diluting it is impossible; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following fill.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever in County Fermanagh the car has stopped.
Ederney: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
In dim light, two caps together — the AdBlue one and the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; many designs allow it. A bottle picked up when heading home and tipped in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
It tends to occur in a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills your car. Near Crom Street, a driver tips a bottle in at home after work. One more pattern: dim light, a pub car park by the pub in the village, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles people know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever across County Fermanagh, Ederney included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first response: leave it switched off.
Ederney: started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Through the filter, along the pipework, and — with any running time — on to the injection pump and each injector: that's where it has gone.
You may see your motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, possibly on the way back from the green space at the edge of the village or halfway across Ederney. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep the car off rather than testing it again. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
On the M77, over 50 miles from Ederney, the next junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Ederney to the car park by the centre is a very different job from a run towards Derry, under 50 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Tell us roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush after the engine has been running. Very rarely does it leave lasting damage when it is noticed early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Ederney
Wherever it has come to rest around Ederney — a filling station, a lay-by, a driveway, a road by a street just off the centre — our van travels to your car. Which fluid was put in, about how much, plus if your motor has been run: we check before all else, since those shape the work.
Then your tank is emptied where the car stands, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush counts much more after AdBlue than after petrol, since residue won't wash out by itself. Next, the filter: cleaned, or replaced if it has to be. Then clean diesel, then a check of the car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour visit once our engineers arrive, provided the motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Last, the system is bled with clean diesel. Starting it comes next, and then you set off from where the vehicle is parked, outside the nearest station or on a driveway in Ederney. We confirm it runs properly on clean diesel before we leave. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to go to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Ederney itself
Ederney is a small locality in County Fermanagh, situated inland at an elevation of 72 metres. Ederney lies near the villages of Kesh, Lack, and Lisnarick, and is approximately 34.9 miles from Derry. Ederney has a population of around 523 people, predominantly living in detached housing. Ederney is located in a rural area, with the city of London being around 376.1 miles away.
Ederney and County Fermanagh: AdBlue drains across the area
The vans that answer AdBlue calls in Ederney also cover the places about it, Kesh, Lack and Lisnarick among them, and most of County Fermanagh beyond, across the BT postcode area. Ring and check rather than guess if you're by a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down.
Ederney is a small village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our technicians drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be moved to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Ederney: the cost of fixing it
There is no fair single price, because the jobs aren't the same. What shifts the price is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind the far end of the built-up part.
That is why each call from Ederney starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. Those replies narrow the range right down to a single number.
You get that price by phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Check your insurance while we're on the way: many include misfuelling cover.
Still alongside the car in Ederney?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the best thing open to you. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether the engine ran are everything our technicians need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest across County Fermanagh, Ederney included.