Newburgh: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that is where you begin if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Chemically, AdBlue is simply urea in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and no harm happens till the motor pulls it round. In Newburgh, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before the motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush, right where your car is. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Newburgh: the first few minutes
Do:
- Pocket the keys, which prevents anyone turning the electrics on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- Which product, and about how much amount? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and we will know.
- Our van locates you quickest with a postcode starting AB41 6, or simply the name of a street nearby, so phone from the car.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll your car: your engine stays off.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself sets your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel won't weaken it.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short way along Main Street.
- Beside the road, don't attempt draining it on your own.
At a forecourt in Newburgh, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or another one, ask the attendants to help you roll the car away from the petrol pump. On that drive, the car remains exactly as it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Not one side suits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump cannot take urea.
It doesn't blend. Once it's tipped into the tank, AdBlue behaves nothing like diesel. Heavier than diesel, it drops and pools underneath it — the very spot the pickup draws from. When your system runs, the AdBlue is first to be pulled through. Before then it waits beneath the diesel, and that is why a car filled in Tipperty yesterday and not started remains the simple case, provided nobody turns your key.
After it's drawn in, the harm takes two forms. What is left once the water evaporates is urea, which forms crystals: they lodge in tiny passages and clog filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in the fuel system, and carries on till it is cleared out. Overnight, a vehicle parked around Newburgh with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it is just inside your tank, it doesn't. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water content harms them by itself.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is frequently worse
Top up a diesel with petrol in error over at the Esso, and this issue is diluted fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and whilst it is in the tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. It does not burn, and so it cannot just be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the next fill, and AdBlue splits back from the diesel, and so watering it won't work. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying the engine "to see" costs more here than nearly any other slip — in Kirkton of Logie Buchan or the centre of Newburgh equally.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue remains in it — wherever across Aberdeenshire your car sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Newburgh: how it ends up there
Plenty of vehicles place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, occasionally under one flap, and in dim light the two can look identical. No one means it. It mostly happens at home, from a container grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
Usually, it takes place in one of a couple of familiar ways. The refill gets hurried outside the local primary school, after your dash lit up with a warning while the kids were dropped off. Near Knockhall Road, someone pours a container in on the drive after work. Another pattern: dim light, a pub car park outside the pub in the village, and someone using that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second car of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are in Newburgh or the remainder of Aberdeenshire, it is the same error and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
Newburgh: started the engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. It has been drawn through the filter and the lines, and if your engine ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors.
Rough running, smoke, dropping power, dashboard lights or stalling: any might show up, maybe midway across Newburgh or returning from Newburgh Golf Club. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep the vehicle off instead of restarting it to check. More of that is pulled through with each start.
Exit the M90, over 50 miles from Newburgh, by the first junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue deeper into the system, so heading for Aberdeen, under 15 miles away, gives a much larger job than crossing Newburgh to the car park by Newburgh Public Hall. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Our technicians do all of the rinsing where your car has come to a stop, and once the motor has run there is more of it. Very seldom does it leave long-term damage when it's spotted quickly.
Newburgh: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Anywhere it has come to rest around Newburgh — a forecourt, a layby, a drive, a road beside Newburgh Parish Hall — the van comes to your vehicle. Which fluid got in, about the quantity, plus if the motor has been run: we ask first, since those shape the work.
Next, emptying that tank right there removes the polluted diesel along with the AdBlue together. The system is cleaned thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in once your filter is cleaned — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your car is tested. Not run? Then expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Last, the system is primed with fresh diesel. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive around Newburgh or in a bay at Dyce. Before leaving, our engineers make sure it's running properly with new diesel in. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has ended up, and it never has to be taken to a garage. Afterwards, you are given the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice and a written report from the engineer.
About Newburgh itself
Newburgh is a small coastal village in Aberdeenshire, situated near the mouth of the River Ythan and close to the nearby settlements of Waterside, Tarty, and Foveran. Newburgh has a population of around 1093 people and is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock. Newburgh sits at a low elevation of around 8 metres above sea level, looking out over the North Sea. Newburgh is located approximately 12 miles north of Aberdeen, Scotland's third-largest city.
AdBlue drains around Newburgh and across Aberdeenshire
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around Newburgh also cover the locations round it, Waterside, Tarty and Foveran among them, and most of Aberdeenshire beyond, across the AB postcode area. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
No towing is needed. In Newburgh, a coastal village, a van that comes to you fits: your car is emptied on the spot, whether in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Newburgh: the cost of fixing it
No single price could be fair, because every job is different. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the position of your car, because an open driveway is easier for a van to get to safely than a tight gap behind War Memorial.
Before any figure, not after, each call from Newburgh opens with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, plus if the engine ran. Those answers shrink a range right down to one figure.
You hear that price on the phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Still alongside the vehicle in Newburgh?
Right now, the most helpful thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Newburgh or anywhere in Aberdeenshire, after you phone 0333 366 0103 to say it was AdBlue, about how big an amount, and whether the engine ran.