Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in High Possil
If AdBlue has gone into the diesel tank, leave the engine off and keep the ignition off. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Being water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage only comes when your pump starts pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around High Possil, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before the motor has run. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank in High Possil
Do these:
- Keys out — then no one can switch anything on.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're at all near moving traffic.
- So you can give us which fluid it was and roughly how much, keep your receipt or the empty bottle.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting G22 7, or just the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Not to do:
- Shifting the car even a few yards is no reason to start your engine.
- Turning the key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't work: AdBlue settles out rather than blending.
- Don't drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Castlebay Street.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself at the kerbside.
The attendants on duty at any High Possil filling station — the BP included — will usually help pushing it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle just where it sits.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. From a separate tank it goes straight to the exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate rather than mixing — quite different from fuel. Denser than diesel, it drops and pools below it — the very place the intake sucks from. Simplest of all: a vehicle that got AdBlue in Parkhouse last night and hasn't been started since. The liquid waits at the base of your tank, untouched — but it will be first through if the motor starts, before any diesel at all.
From there it does two kinds of damage. 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 parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. Overnight, a car parked around High Possil with AdBlue in its lines gets worse; if it is just in your tank, it doesn't. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Petrol put into a diesel on Shell's forecourt leaves your fuel watery — that is the whole fault. No harm is done as long as it stays put, mixed into the diesel — only when your engine runs on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It does not burn, so it can't simply be run through. Whether the vehicle is in Possil Park or the centre of High Possil, turning it over "to see" costs more in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts more. Why: it won't remain mixed, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the next fill.
With AdBlue, the good news is no distinct from petrol. Not run? Then the AdBlue waits just in that tank, the easiest section of the whole system to empty, anywhere your car has stopped across Glasgow City.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around High Possil
Plenty of motors place the AdBlue filler beside the diesel cap, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two can look the same. No one means it. A bottle bought while driving home and poured in at home, rather than at the forecourt, is the usual story.
It tends to take place in a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is hurried outside the local primary school, because the dash flashed with a warning as the kids were dropped off. In the evening, a bottle goes in on a driveway close to Skerray Quadrant. Otherwise, after dark outside The Inn, the car gets topped up by someone using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the other car of a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people know least. Keep it switched off: that's the first step to the same slip, anywhere around High Possil or the rest of Glasgow City you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around High Possil, and the motor started?
Then the AdBlue has left the tank. Via the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — with any running time — on to the injection pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
Perhaps returning from Glasgow Club Milton, or midway across High Possil, the motor may run rough, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or stall. No restarting to check: stop once it is safe, then switch it off. Every start pulls more of that through.
If you were on the M8, under 3 miles from High Possil, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
A quick hop across High Possil to the car park by Milton Library and Learning Centre is one matter; heading for Glasgow, under 3 miles away, is another, since every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage counts. Let us know 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 once your engine has been running. If it's noticed quickly, lasting damage is very rare.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel in High Possil: what it takes
Anywhere it has stopped in High Possil — a filling station, a layby, a drive, a street beside Rocket Man — our van travels to the car. Which fluid went in, about the quantity, and whether your motor has been run: our technicians ask first, because those shape the job.
Then that tank is emptied where your car stands, and so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed all the way through since what remains will not wash out by itself. Testing the car comes at the end, once clean diesel goes in and your filter gets flushed or, where necessary, replaced. Engine not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the fuel system with clean diesel comes at the end. At that point we start the engine and you set off, whether from a parking bay at Possilpark & Parkhouse or a driveway around High Possil. Before leaving, we check it is running smoothly with clean diesel in. Our technicians do it all wherever the vehicle has ended up, and it never has to go to a garage. At the end, you are given paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About High Possil, briefly
High Possil is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Glasgow City, with a mix of flat housing and local amenities. High Possil sits at an elevation of 67 metres, approximately 2.6 miles from Glasgow city centre. High Possil is close to nearby places such as Milton, Lambhill, and Cadder, and is home to a population of around 3392 people. High Possil is located in a scenic area, with the river flowing nearby.
AdBlue drains across High Possil and Glasgow City
Milton, Lambhill and Cadder are among the towns near High Possil that the same vans serve, together with most of Glasgow City beyond, over the G postcode area. Near a boundary, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
A van that comes to you fits High Possil, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the car to us, because our technicians empty it there, on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around High Possil: the cost of fixing it
There's no honest single price, because the jobs are not the same. What changes the price is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and after that where your car is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight spot behind Roman Head.
For that reason, every call from High Possil begins with the same trio — what went in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — before any quote. Those replies narrow a range down to one figure.
The quote is quoted during the call, before a van leaves; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance while we're on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
In High Possil and still beside the car?
Then, do nothing — that is the most helpful step there is. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in High Possil or anywhere within Glasgow City, once you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.