AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Maud? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your motor off — and your ignition too. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. It doesn't burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does begins when the system draws it in. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully rinsed where the car sits in Maud. No step comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Maud: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- Remove your keys, and that stops anyone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Which product, and about what volume? Save the bottle or the till receipt, and we can see.
- Give us a postcode starting AB42 5, or whatever street lies closest, and our van reaches you straight — so ring wherever you stand.
Not to do:
- Shifting the vehicle even a few yards is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment the ignition goes on, and so leave it off.
- Pouring in more diesel does not help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Leave the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way down Station Road.
- Do not try to drain it yourself at the roadside.
Moving your car away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Maud forecourt you are on, the Esso included. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. From a separate tank it is fed directly to your exhaust, treating what your motor lets out. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Milltown of Auchreddie last night and not started remains the simple case, provided no one turns the key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It attacks certain metals used in fuel components, working on any part it touches till it is removed from the system. And once the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in tiny passages. By daybreak, a vehicle parked in Maud with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; where it is just in that tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and each injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, which is a separate form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more major than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a fault of thin fuel. Damage only comes from running on it. Mixed into the diesel and left in that tank, it causes nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It can't just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Whether the vehicle sits in Nethermuir or the centre of Maud, turning it over "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other error, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it will not remain mixed, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion outlast the next fill.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the motor has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Aberdeenshire your car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Maud
Plenty of motors place the AdBlue cap beside the diesel cap, occasionally under a single flap, and in dim light the two can appear identical. No one means it. It usually happens at home, from a container bought en route home, not at the forecourt.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent tops up the car. Someone tips the bottle in at home, right off Henry Lane, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap refills your car in dim light, stopped in the car park outside Station Hotel Maud.
It comes up most in a rental, a brand-new vehicle, a company motor, or the other car of a home with one of each fuel types — the cars drivers know the least. Wherever around Aberdeenshire, Maud as well, the mistake doesn't change, and neither does the first step: leave it switched off.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Maud, and your engine started?
Then the tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. With any running, it goes on to the injection pump and every injector, after passing via the fuel filter and pipework.
Watch for lumpy running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — returning from Maud Pleasure Park, say, or midway across Maud. When safe, pull over then switch everything off — without turning it on again to see. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Maud lies over 50 miles from the M90; if you were on it, exit at the next junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system. That is why a hop across Maud to park near Maud Railway Museum and a drive of under 50 miles for Aberdeen are such different jobs. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Once the engine has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has ended up. Lasting damage is very uncommon if it's caught early.
What emptying AdBlue from a diesel involves around Maud
Anywhere it has stopped around Maud — a forecourt, a layby, a driveway, a street by Maud War Memorial — our van comes to the car. Three replies decide the job, and so first our engineers ask which fluid got in, roughly what quantity, plus whether the motor has run.
Then that tank is drained where the vehicle sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Your system is purged thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. A test of the car comes last, after clean diesel is added and the filter gets cleaned or, where necessary, replaced. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we arrive, if the motor has not run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Bleeding the system with fresh diesel comes at the end. You drive off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway in Maud or in a bay at the nearest station. It's checked on fresh diesel to confirm it runs correctly before our technicians go. As the job is done in full where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later on, which is what insurers ask for.
About Maud and where it is
Maud is a village situated on the riverside in Aberdeenshire, with a relatively low elevation of 71 metres. Maud lies approximately 25 miles west of Aberdeen and is surrounded by nearby places such as Backhill of Clackriach, Bulwark, and Drymuir. Maud has a population of around 704 people and predominantly features detached housing.
AdBlue drains across Aberdeenshire, Maud included
The teams that answer AdBlue call-outs in Maud also cover the places round it, Backhill of Clackriach, Bulwark and Drymuir among them, and most of Aberdeenshire beyond, across the AB postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
A mobile service suits Maud, a village: you have no need to bring the vehicle to us, since we drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Maud?
Because the jobs vary, a single price wouldn't be honest. What shifts the price is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and then where your car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight space behind Obelisk to William Dingwall Fordyce MP.
Which fluid went in, what quantity, and if the engine ran: each Maud enquiry opens by asking exactly those, before any quote, never after. Those answers shrink the range right down to one figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told the quote by phone. Then you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While the van is travelling, check your insurance: many include misfuelling.
Maud: still alongside the vehicle?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with your vehicle is to not touch it. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and whether it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Maud or anywhere around Aberdeenshire.