AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kingsteps? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the harm it does starts when the system draws it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and carefully rinsed where the vehicle sits in Kingsteps. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Kingsteps, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do straight away
Do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, pull the keys out.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, and so don't bin it out.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting IV12 5, or just the name of a street close by, so phone from the car.
Not to do:
- No starting your engine — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, turning it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- No extra fuel added. The AdBlue won't mix, and so it's wasted.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short way down Lochloy Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
The staff on duty at any Kingsteps filling station — the Sainsbury's among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the car exactly where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust to treat the fumes. No part in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of that was intended to go through one.
Poured in with the diesel, it stays separate instead of blending — entirely different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a motor that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Hardmuir last night, and has not been started since, is still the straightforward case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has drawn it in.
It does two kinds of damage from there. It eats at some metals found in fuel systems, working on whatever it reaches till it's cleared from the system. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and settle in narrow passages. Pipes carrying AdBlue mean damage overnight for a car parked around Kingsteps. Just in your tank, it stays the same. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and every injector need diesel running past them, and so the water part damages them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Top up a diesel with petrol by mistake over at the Gulf, and the issue is thinned fuel. Blended into the diesel and left still, it's harmless for now; running your motor does the damage.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. It cannot just be run through, because it does not burn. Whether your vehicle is in Moss-side or the heart of Kingsteps, turning it over "to see" costs more with AdBlue than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts for more. Why: it won't remain mixed, so watering it down is impossible; and crystals and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and the tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Highland your car is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Kingsteps
It is not deliberate. Plenty of vehicles have the AdBlue cap beside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is easy in poor light. Mostly it's never the filling station: someone buys a container driving home and pours it in at home.
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. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a drive close to Carron Street. Or someone unfamiliar with that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, parked in the car park by Brackla Hotel.
It crops up most in a rental, a new motor, a company car, or the spare vehicle in a family with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever you are around Kingsteps or the rest of Highland, it's the same slip and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Kingsteps: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and lines have had it sucked through, and some running time carries it on to the high-pressure pump and each injector.
You may notice the engine running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Nairn Dunbar Golf Course or halfway across Kingsteps. No starting it again to test: stop when safe, then turn it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
On the M90, over 50 miles from Kingsteps, the next junction is where to leave, and anywhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into your system. That is why a hop across Kingsteps to park beside Nairn Seaman’s Victoria Hall and a drive of under 25 miles towards Inverness are such separate jobs. Let us know about how far it had come.
There is more to rinse out once your engine has been started, and our engineers do all of it where the car has stopped. Lasting damage is very rare when it's caught soon.
Kingsteps: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
The vehicle remains put, whether that is a road near Fishertown-Seamans Hall Tablet, a drive, a layby or a filling station in Kingsteps, and our van comes to it. What went in, about how much, and whether the motor has been run: our technicians ask first, because those decide the work.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one after your tank is drained, right there. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and your car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our technicians arrive. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
The final step is to bleed the system on new diesel. Firing it up comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, outside Nairn or on a driveway around Kingsteps. The test before our engineers go is that it runs correctly on fresh diesel. Since the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Kingsteps itself
Kingsteps is a small coastal hamlet in the Highland council area, situated near the Moray Firth and close to the towns of Nairn and Auldearn. Kingsteps has a low elevation of around 12 metres, reflecting its coastal location. Kingsteps is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, with the nearby city of Inverness being a significant urban centre for the area.
AdBlue drains across Highland, Kingsteps included
Throughout the IV postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs in Kingsteps reach most of Highland too, Fishertown, Nairn and Auldearn included. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
A mobile service suits Kingsteps, a rural hamlet: there's no need to take your car to us, because we empty it there, in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Kingsteps
There is no fair single quote, because the jobs aren't the same. Whether your engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of the vehicle, since an open driveway is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight spot behind The Laing Hall.
That's why every call from Kingsteps starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it has run. Once those are known, a range becomes one fixed number.
Before a van sets off, you are told the price by phone. And payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still next to the vehicle around Kingsteps?
Right now, the best thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Kingsteps or anywhere across Highland.