AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Garnieland? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave the engine off — and the ignition too. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing starts until your motor pulls it round. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully rinsed where the car stands in Garnieland. First, call us on 0333 366 0103.
Garnieland, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do straight away
Things to do:
- Take the keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting PA8 7, or the name of the closest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Not even briefly, and not to shift the car: the engine stays off.
- Plenty of diesels power their fuel pump the moment your ignition goes on, so keep the car off.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Even a short distance up Newshot Drive is too far to drive the car.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the roadside.
Rolling the car away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Garnieland forecourt you are on, the Shell included. At your own driveway, do not move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, and there it cleans the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It sinks, since it is heavier than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. Simplest of all: one that had AdBlue in Town Centre overnight and hasn't turned since. The AdBlue sits at the foot of the tank, undrawn — but it will be first through once the motor starts, before any diesel at all.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. 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, and so it keeps labouring on the components it hits for as long as it remains there. A motor left standing in Garnieland with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank is not. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water offers no lubrication, which is a second kind of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is regularly more serious than petrol
A fault of thin fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Henry's. Blended through the diesel and sitting unused, it is harmless for now; running your motor is the harm.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. It does not burn, so it cannot simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether your car is in West Freeland or the middle of Garnieland.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and with no running, the AdBlue remains in there — wherever in Renfrewshire the car has stopped.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Garnieland: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on many vehicles rests right next to your diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the pump.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning light came on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. A driver pours the container in outside their house, right off Parkvale Avenue, as the day ends. One more pattern: dim light, the car park outside The Braehead Tavern, and a driver using that flap the first time.
The least familiar vehicles get it most — hire cars, brand-new cars, company cars, and the other motor of a family with one of each fuels. Wherever in Renfrewshire, Garnieland included, the slip does not change, and neither does the first step: keep it switched off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Garnieland, and the motor started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — on to the injection pump and each injector: that is where it has gone.
Maybe returning from Newshot Island Local Nature Reserve, or part way across Garnieland, the motor may go lumpy, smoke, lose power, light up the dash or cut out. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart the car to check. Every start pulls more of that through.
Leave the M898, under 3 miles from Garnieland, by the next junction and park safely, not carrying on.
Hopping across Garnieland to the car park by St Bernadette's R C Church is one matter; heading towards Glasgow, under 10 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once the motor has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. Noticed early, it very rarely leaves long-term damage.
Garnieland: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Wherever it has stopped in Garnieland — a filling station, a layby, a driveway, a street by Inchinnan Parish Church — our van travels to the car. What was put in, roughly the quantity, plus whether the engine has turned over: we check before all else, since those decide the job.
Next, draining your tank right there removes the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
New diesel goes in to bleed the system, and that is the final step. You head off as soon as we have started the engine, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Garnieland or in a space outside Dalmuir. It is tested on clean diesel to make sure it runs correctly before our engineers head off. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers want.
About Garnieland itself
Garnieland is a suburban area located on the coast of Renfrewshire, with an elevation of 11 metres above sea level. Garnieland sits near the cities of Glasgow and Paisley, and is close to other nearby places such as Bourne Court and East Freeland. Garnieland has a population of approximately 5358 people, and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Garnieland is situated about 8 miles west of Glasgow, Scotland's largest city.
AdBlue drains across Garnieland and Renfrewshire
Our teams that answer AdBlue calls in Garnieland also cover the places around it, Bourne Court, East Freeland and Park Mains among them, and most of Renfrewshire beyond, across the PA postcode area. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Garnieland is a residential suburb, and a call-out drain suits it: whether the car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, we drain it where it sits, and so it never needs to be shifted to us.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Garnieland: the cost of fixing it
Because each callouts vary, a single price wouldn't be fair. Three things move the price: whether the engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where the car is. That last one turns on whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight gap behind The Lancastria Memorial.
That is why every call from Garnieland starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and if it has run. Their answers narrow the range down to one number.
The price is given on the call, before a van sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
Still alongside the car around Garnieland?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Ignition off, motor off, keys out. Ring 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it ran are all our engineers ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder across Renfrewshire, Garnieland too.