Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lochfield
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does the engine. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Unlike fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens until your motor pulls it round. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally drained and thoroughly flushed where the car sits in Lochfield. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do straight away, Lochfield: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- So nobody can switch your ignition on, pull your keys out.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- The empty bottle or your receipt tells us the product and the quantity, and so don't throw it out.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting DG2 9, or just the name of a street nearby, so call from the spot.
Not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the car: your motor stays off.
- Turning your key to ignition alone sets the pump going on plenty of diesels. Avoid it.
- No extra fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it is wasted.
- Even a short way down Yarrow Avenue is too far to drive it.
- Emptying the tank yourself beside the road isn't one to try.
At a forecourt in Lochfield, whether it's the Tesco or another one, ask the staff to help you roll your car away from the pump. On that drive, the car remains exactly as it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not the engine. Kept in a separate tank, it is squirted into the exhaust stream to treat the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Tipped in with your diesel, it stays apart instead of mixing — entirely different from fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. A vehicle topped up on a driveway in Nithside overnight and left unstarted counts as the simple case. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but when the motor turns, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
Two kinds of damage come from there. It eats at some metals used in fuel components, attacking any part it touches till it is removed from the system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny passages. By daybreak, a car parked in Lochfield with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it is just in your tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the injection pump and each injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, and that is a separate form of damage.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Petrol pumped into a diesel on another forecourt nearby's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that is the whole problem. Mixed into the diesel and left still, it's no threat for now; running the motor does the damage.
The issue with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. It can't simply be run through, because it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle is in Lochside or the centre of Lochfield, turning it over "to see" does more harm in this case than almost any other slip, and the flush matters for more. Why: it will not stay blended, so diluting it fails; and crystals and corrosion survive the next tankful.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside your tank, and the tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever around Dumfries and Galloway your car is standing.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Lochfield: how it ends up there
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly happens at home, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside the local primary school the refill is hurried. Close to Blackley Park Road, someone pours a bottle in on that drive after work. Otherwise, in dim light outside The Globe Inn, your car gets topped up by someone using that flap the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a brand-new car, a company vehicle, or the other vehicle of a family with one of each fuel types — the cars people know the least. Wherever in Dumfries and Galloway, Lochfield as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first response: keep it switched off.
Lochfield: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. The filter and lines have had it pulled along, and some running carries it on to the injection pump and each injector.
Perhaps coming back from Summerhill Land Art, or part way across Lochfield, your motor may go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or stall. Pull over when it is safe. Turn off. Leave it off rather than testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Lochfield sits under 15 miles from the A74(M); if you were on it, leave by the next junction and stop safely instead of driving on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That is why crossing Lochfield to park beside Palmerston Park and a drive of under 50 miles for Carlisle are very distinct jobs. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
There is more to clean out once your engine has been started, and we do all of it where the car has come to a stop. Very seldom does it leave permanent damage when it is caught soon.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Lochfield
Anywhere it has stopped in Lochfield — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Dumfries Ice Bowl — our van travels to the car. Three replies decide the job, so before anything else we ask which fluid went in, roughly what quantity, plus if the motor has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one after your tank is emptied, on the spot. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the fuel system is flushed right through since residue will not flush away by itself. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. If the motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding the system with clean diesel comes last. You drive off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway in Lochfield or in a bay at Dumfries. The test before we head off is that it runs properly on new diesel. Because the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a garage never comes into it. Afterwards, you are given paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Lochfield and where it is
Lochfield is a suburban area located inland in Dumfries and Galloway, with a relatively low elevation of 16 metres. Lochfield sits near the towns of Summerville, Laurieknowe, and Suffolk Hill, and is approximately 30 miles from Carlisle. Lochfield has a population of around 3665 people and predominantly features detached housing. Lochfield is situated in a region that is some distance from major cities, with London being around 286 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Lochfield and Dumfries and Galloway
AdBlue jobs in Lochfield are passed to teams that serve the towns around it — Summerville, Laurieknowe as well as Suffolk Hill — and much of Dumfries and Galloway further out, across DG postcodes. Guessing doesn't help close to a county line or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
A van that comes to you suits Lochfield, a residential suburb: you have no need to take the car to us, since we empty it there, on a drive, a side street, a car park or a filling station.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Lochfield
There's no honest single price, since the jobs are not the same. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what shifts the price. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the vehicle, because an open drive is simpler for a van to reach safely than a tight gap behind Dumfries Northwest Parish Church.
What got in, how much, and if the engine ran: each Lochfield call opens with precisely that, ahead of any quote, never afterwards. When they are known, a range becomes one firm figure.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, nothing in advance. Look at your policy while we are on the way: plenty include misfuelling cover.
Beside the vehicle in Lochfield, right now?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Lochfield or anywhere within Dumfries and Galloway, after you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and if the engine ran.