Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Forgandenny
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. The harm begins once it's pulled through the pump — it will not ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Forgandenny, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before your engine has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Forgandenny, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- Take your keys out, so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- Which fluid, and about how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and we will know.
- Ring just where you are. Say a PH2 9 postcode or the closest street name, and no one has to search for you.
Things not to do:
- Moving the vehicle just a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Switching the key to ignition alone starts your pump running on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch along Rossie Place.
- Don't try to drain the car yourself at the roadside.
Ask the attendants to help you move the vehicle away from the island if you are at a forecourt around Forgandenny, whether it's the Esso or somewhere else. At home, the car remains exactly where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to the exhaust, cleaning what the engine emits. A fuel pump isn't designed to cope with it, and AdBlue was never supposed to travel through one.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely unlike fuel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Forteviot last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of your tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It does two kinds of damage from there. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in tiny channels and block filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and keeps going till it's cleared out. Overnight, a car parked around Forgandenny with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it is just in your tank, nothing changes. The water in it does damage of its own: your high-pressure pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on Shell's forecourt makes your fuel thin — that is the main issue. Mixed into your diesel and left still, it's harmless for now; using your engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It does not burn, so it can't simply be run through. Whether your vehicle is in Scoonieburn or the heart of Forgandenny, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other mistake, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not stay blended, so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the next fill.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Not started? Then the AdBlue waits just in your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, wherever the vehicle has come to rest around Perth and Kinross.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Forgandenny?
No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. A container bought while heading home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical story.
Usually, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside the local primary school, after the dash flashed with a warning as the children were dropped in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off B935. Otherwise, after dark outside the pub in the village, your vehicle gets refilled by someone using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a company vehicle, or the spare car in a home with both fuel types — the cars drivers know least. Anywhere across Perth and Kinross, Forgandenny included, the slip doesn't change, and nor does the first response: keep it switched off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Forgandenny, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Given any running time, it travels to the injection pump and every injector, after passing via the fuel filter and pipework.
Perhaps coming back from Gallowmuir Wood, or part way across Forgandenny, the engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop pace, flash your dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the vehicle to check. Each start pulls more of that through.
Forgandenny sits under 3 miles from the M90; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Forgandenny to the car park by War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Perth, under 5 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
Our technicians do all of the flushing where the vehicle has ended up, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. If it's caught early, permanent damage is very rare.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Forgandenny: what it takes
Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Forgandenny: a side street close to Forgandenny Parish Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The work depends on three replies, and our technicians get before all else — what got in, the quantity, and if the motor has run.
Right there, that tank is then drained, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave at once. What remains from AdBlue won't flush away by itself, and so the whole system gets a full flush, which matters far more with urea than for petrol. After that, the filter: cleaned, or changed when it must be. Then fresh diesel, and then a check of the car. Most of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers arrive, provided your engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to bleed your system, and that's the last step. Starting the engine comes next, and then you drive off from where your car is parked, outside Perth or on a driveway in Forgandenny. The check before we leave is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never has to be taken to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Forgandenny
Forgandenny is a small village in Perth and Kinross, situated inland near the city of Perth. Forgandenny sits at an elevation of 48 metres, close to the nearby villages of Aberdalgie and Milltown of Aberdalgie. Forgandenny is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Forgandenny remains a quiet residential community on the outskirts of Perth.
AdBlue drains around Forgandenny and across Perth and Kinross
Aberdalgie, Milltown of Aberdalgie and Craigend are among the towns around Forgandenny that the same vans serve, together with much of Perth and Kinross beyond, over the PH postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a border or somewhere hard to describe; phone and ask.
Forgandenny is a rural village, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the vehicle is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it is, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Forgandenny?
Because each callouts vary, a flat figure would not be honest. What shifts the cost is, first, whether the engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where your car is and whether a technician can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Forgandenny Village Hall.
That's why each call from Forgandenny starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it has run. The answers turn a range into a straight price.
Priced on the call before the van sets out, it is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still alongside your car in Forgandenny?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Ignition off, engine off, keys out. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Forgandenny or wherever in Perth and Kinross, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.