AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Ferryden? Don't Start It
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, keep your engine off then keep the ignition off. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. The harm begins once it is pulled through your pump — it will not burn, and it won't combine with diesel. In Ferryden, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before the engine runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Ferryden, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- Pull your keys out, so no one switches the ignition on.
- If you are anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and about how much, keep the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Tell us a postcode starting DD10 9, or whichever street is closest, and the van finds you straight — so ring wherever you are.
Do not do these:
- Do not start your engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel won't thin it.
- Even a short way up Craig Crescent is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Beside the road, do not attempt draining it yourself.
At a forecourt in Ferryden, whether it's the BP or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle away from the pump. If you are on your own drive, leave the car exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your engine. Kept in a dedicated tank, it is injected into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. A fuel pump is not made to take it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
It does not combine. After it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like diesel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. A motor filled on a driveway in Rossie Mills overnight and not started since is the straightforward case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but when the engine turns, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water evaporates, it strands urea that hardens in filter elements and tiny passages; meanwhile, since it attacks certain metals, every part it reaches keeps suffering for as long as it remains in there. If the AdBlue has reached the pipework, waiting till morning in Ferryden makes it worse. Inside the tank only, waiting does nothing. Diesel lubricates the high-pressure pump and each injector as it flows; water offers no lubrication, and that is a second kind of harm.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more major than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you get after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Asda. Blended through the diesel and left still, it is no threat for now; using the engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, so it can't be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Usan or the middle of Ferryden.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and that tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Angus the vehicle is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Ferryden
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles sits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Mostly, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up takes place in a hurry outside the local primary school. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Barns Brae. One more pattern: dim light, a pub car park by Anchor Bar, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
The least familiar cars get it most — rentals, new ones, company ones, and the spare car in a home with both fuel types. Keep it off: that is the first step to the same slip, anywhere around Ferryden or the rest of Angus you are.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Ferryden, and the motor started?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. Through the filter, through the pipework, and — with any running — on to the high-pressure pump and each injector: that is where it has gone.
Rough running, smoke, lost power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any might appear, maybe part way across Ferryden or returning from King George Playing Fields. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and don't restart the car to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
Ferryden sits under 50 miles from the M90; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and stop safely rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A few hundred yards across Ferryden to the car park by War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Dundee, under 50 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your 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 clean out once your engine has been run. If it is caught soon, long-term damage is very uncommon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Ferryden?
A road by Craig Parish WW1 War Memorial, a drive, a layby or a forecourt: anywhere your car has stopped around Ferryden, our engineers travel to it. Three answers shape the work, and so before anything else our engineers ask which fluid got in, about what quantity, and whether the motor has run.
Right there, the tank is then drained, and all of the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. What remains from AdBlue won't flush out by itself, and so the whole system gets a careful flush, which matters much more with urea than for petrol. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, provided the motor hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
New diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the final step. Firing it up comes next, and then you set off from where your car is parked, by Montrose or on a drive in Ferryden. It's checked on clean diesel to confirm it runs properly before we head off. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — both yours afterwards.
About Ferryden itself
Ferryden is a coastal suburban area in Angus, situated near the town of Montrose and overlooking the North Sea. Ferryden sits at a low elevation of around 18 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation in the area. Ferryden is located near other small communities such as Inchbraoch and Kirkton of Craig, and is around 25 miles from the city of Dundee.
AdBlue drains across Ferryden and Angus
Inchbraoch, Kirkton of Craig and Montrose are among the towns near Ferryden that the same vans reach, along with much of Angus beyond, over the DD postcode area. Close to a boundary, or anywhere awkward to explain? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
No towing is needed. In Ferryden, a residential suburb, a mobile service works: the car is emptied on the spot, whether in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Ferryden?
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs are not the same. Three things change the cost: whether the engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where your car is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind King George Playing Fields.
With that in mind, each enquiry from Ferryden opens with the identical trio — which fluid was put in, what quantity, if it ran — before a figure. When they are answered, a range turns into a single firm number.
Quoted by phone before the van sets out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
In Ferryden and still next to the car?
Not touching the car is, then, the best move open to you. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Ferryden or wherever in Angus, after you call 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.