Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Melrose
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the motor. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Being water-based, it will not burn and never combines with diesel; trouble only starts when the pump begins drawing it. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and carefully cleaned where the car sits around Melrose. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Melrose: the first few minutes
To do:
- Take the keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the fluid and the amount, and so do not bin it away.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting TD6 9, or the name of the nearest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Things not to do:
- Do not start your engine, even for a moment to shift your car.
- Many diesels run their pump the instant the ignition comes on, and so leave the car off.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more fuel won't weaken it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short distance down Market Square.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
At a forecourt around Melrose, whether it's the BP or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump. At your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for the exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the motor. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it is fed into the exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Not one side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
It does not combine. Once it is tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. It drops, since it's denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake draws its fuel from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Until then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Newstead yesterday and never switched on stays the simple one, as long as nobody touches your key.
It does two kinds of harm from there. It attacks certain metals found in fuel components, attacking whatever it reaches till it is removed completely. And when the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage by morning for a car parked in Melrose. Only in the tank, it stays the same. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors rely on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Petrol pumped into a diesel on another forecourt nearby's forecourt makes the fuel thin — that's the main issue. Blended into the diesel and left still, it is harmless for now; using the engine is the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Nor can it be watered down, because it splits again — and the next fill will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Melrose or out in Darnick, costs more than nearly any other slip.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Wherever across Scottish Borders the car has stopped, an unrun motor means the AdBlue yet in the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Melrose
It's not deliberate. Many vehicles keep the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel one, now and then behind one flap, and mixing them up is simple in poor light. Usually it is not the filling station: someone buys a bottle heading home and pours it in at home.
Usually, it occurs in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets rushed outside the local primary school, because your dash lit up with a warning as the kids were taken off. In the evening, a container goes in on a driveway near Dingleton Road. Else, in dim light by Ship Inn, your car is topped up by a driver using that flap for the first time.
It crops up most in a hire car, a new motor, a fleet motor, or the spare car in a home with both fuels — the cars people use the least. Wherever in Scottish Borders, Melrose included, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first step: leave it off.
Melrose: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. The filter and pipework have had it pulled through, and any running carries it on to the high-pressure pump and every injector.
Maybe returning from Melrose Abbey, or part way across Melrose, the engine might run lumpy, smoke, drop power, flash the dash or cut out. Once you safely can, stop then switch it off — with no restarting to test. Each start pulls more of it through.
On the M8, under 50 miles from Melrose, the next junction is where to exit, and somewhere sensible is where to park — not carrying on.
Hopping across Melrose to the car park by Mercat Cross is one thing; driving towards Edinburgh, under 50 miles away, is something else, since every mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage counts. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once your engine has been started, and we do all of it where the car has ended up. Noticed quickly, it very seldom leaves permanent damage.
Clearing AdBlue in a diesel around Melrose: what it takes
A street beside Melrose Library, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: wherever your vehicle has come to rest around Melrose, our technicians come to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if your motor has been run, since those answers determine the work.
Then the tank is drained where your car waits, and so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. Residue from AdBlue will not flush out unaided, so the fuel system gets a full flush, which matters far more here than with petrol. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Not run? Then expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Our pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a busy forecourt is no issue, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Last, the fuel system is primed with clean diesel. Then our engineers fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space at Tweedbank or a driveway in Melrose. Before we leave, our technicians confirm it's running smoothly with fresh diesel in. No workshop is needed at any point, with the whole job done then and there. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers ask for.
About Melrose and where it is
Melrose is a town situated on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, with a population of around 3039 people. Melrose sits at an elevation of 98 metres, surrounded by rolling countryside and nearby places such as Dingleton, Highcross, and Gattonside. Melrose is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its appeal as a residential location. Melrose is located approximately 30 miles southeast of Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, and about 302 miles north of London.
AdBlue drains in Melrose and across Scottish Borders
Dingleton, Highcross and Gattonside are among the places around Melrose that the same vans reach, together with most of Scottish Borders beyond, throughout the TD postcode area. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask rather than assuming.
No moving is needed. In Melrose, a riverside town, a mobile service fits: the car is emptied on the spot, whether in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Melrose
There's no honest single quote, since the jobs aren't the same. What changes the cost is, first of all, whether the engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and then where your car is and whether our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Trimontium Museum.
Which fluid went in, what quantity, plus whether it ran: each Melrose enquiry begins by asking precisely those, ahead of any quote, not after. Once those are known, a range turns into one firm figure.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the price by phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Beside the car around Melrose, right now?
Then the most useful thing you can do is nothing to the car. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether it ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel takes over, in Melrose or anywhere in Scottish Borders.