AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kelvinside? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and the ignition too. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. As it is water-based, it won't burn and never combines with diesel; damage just starts once your pump begins drawing it. If your motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly flushed where the car stands around Kelvinside. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Kelvinside
Things to do:
- So no one can turn the ignition on, pull your keys out.
- If you're at all close to moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the product and the quantity, and so do not throw it out.
- Give us a postcode starting G12 0, or whatever street lies nearest, and our van reaches you directly — so call wherever you are.
Don't:
- Don't start the motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Don't switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- No more fuel added. The AdBlue will not mix, and so it is wasted.
- Leave it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short stretch down Redlands Road.
- Do not try to drain the car yourself by the roadside.
Rolling your car away from the pumps is a job for staff to help with, whichever Kelvinside forecourt you are on, the BP or any other. If you are on your own drive, leave it just where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump cannot deal with urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, once tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Partickhill last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. What is left once the water goes is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and block filters. Worse, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and keeps going until it is flushed out. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell harm by morning for a vehicle sitting around Kelvinside. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, which is a separate kind of harm.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Top up a diesel with petrol in error at the Esso, and the issue is thinned fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and while it is inside the tank it does no harm; the harm comes from running your engine on it.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally unsuitable liquid. Because it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates again — and the following tankful will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Kelvinside or out in Kelvindale, costs more than nearly any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue sits just in the tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, wherever the vehicle has come to rest around Glasgow City.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Kelvinside
After dark, two caps together — the AdBlue cap and the diesel cap, now and then under a single flap — may appear the same. Nobody means it; plenty of designs invite it. It usually happens at home, from a bottle bought on the journey home, not at the filling station.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Halfway through the morning drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside the local primary school the refill is rushed. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off Kirklee Circus. Another version: darkness, the car park by Òran Mór, and a driver using that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a hire car, a brand-new car, a fleet motor, or the other motor in a family with one of each fuels — the vehicles people use the least. Wherever you are in Kelvinside or the rest of Glasgow City, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank around Kelvinside?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and lines have had it sucked along, and some running carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
You may notice your engine running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, maybe on the way back from Glasgow Botanic Gardens or halfway across Kelvinside. No restarting to check: stop when it is safe, then switch everything off. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
On the M8, under 3 miles from Kelvinside, the first junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went matters. A couple of hundred yards across Kelvinside to the car park by Kelvinside Hillhead Parish Church is a very different job from a run towards Glasgow, under 3 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with every mile. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the cleaning where the vehicle has stopped, and once your engine has been run there is more of it. When it's spotted soon, long-term damage is very rare.
Kelvinside: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Our technicians come to the car, wherever it has stopped around Kelvinside: a side street near St Bride's, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers decide the work, and so first we ask which fluid got in, about what quantity, plus whether the motor has turned over.
Then your tank is drained where the car waits, and so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because residue won't wash out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or replaced, if it needs to be — and then the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? Then count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no issue, and it's quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
The last step is to bleed the system on new diesel. After that we start it and you set off, whether from a parking space at Hyndland or a driveway in Kelvinside. We make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before we leave. Because the job is done in its entirety where the vehicle is, a garage never comes into it. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a written report from the engineer.
About Kelvinside, for a moment
Kelvinside is a suburban area in Glasgow City, situated on the banks of the River Kelvin. Kelvinside sits at an elevation of around 40 metres, with its riverside location influencing the local landscape. Kelvinside is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing, which is typical of many areas in Glasgow City. Kelvinside is close to neighbouring areas such as Hyndland, North Kelvin, and Dowanhill, and is approximately 2.6 miles from Glasgow city centre.
AdBlue drains across Kelvinside and Glasgow City
Hyndland, North Kelvin and Dowanhill are among the towns around Kelvinside that the same teams reach, together with most of Glasgow City further out, throughout the G postcode area. If you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than assuming.
No towing is needed. In Kelvinside, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you fits: the vehicle is emptied where it stands, be it in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Kelvinside: the cost of fixing it
There's no fair single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. Three things shift the price: whether the motor has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a van can reach it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Hillhead Library.
Which fluid was put in, how much, plus whether the engine ran: each Kelvinside call begins by asking exactly those, before any quote, never afterwards. Given those replies, the range narrows to one firm figure.
You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Look at your insurance whilst we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Kelvinside: still alongside the car?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to leave it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Kelvinside or anywhere within Glasgow City, once you call 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.