AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pollok? Don't Start It
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave the engine off — and your ignition too. In plain terms, AdBlue is just urea in water. Being water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; damage just comes when your pump starts pulling it. Caught before your motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Pollok. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Pollok: the first few minutes
To do:
- Pocket your keys, and that stops someone switching the power on.
- If you are at all near moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the till receipt shows us the product and the amount, so do not throw it away.
- Call just where you are. Quote a G53 5 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Don't do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: the engine stays off.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets your pump running on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding extra diesel doesn't help: AdBlue settles out rather than thinning.
- Even a short stretch up Cornalee Place is too far to drive the vehicle.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the verge.
The staff working at any Pollok forecourt — the Tesco among them — will normally help rolling it clear if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave the vehicle exactly where it stands.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. From a dedicated tank it is fed directly to the exhaust, treating what your engine lets out. Nothing inside a fuel pump is designed for this liquid — and no part of it was intended to travel through one.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It does not mix in. The intake takes fuel from the lowest part of that tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue settles: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A vehicle filled on a drive in Nitshill yesterday evening and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though when your engine runs, that's what is pulled first, directly from the bottom of your tank.
From there it does two kinds of damage. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps running on the components it reaches for as long as it stays there. A vehicle left standing in Pollok with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector need diesel flowing past them, so the water content harms them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
A fault of thinned fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol from the Esso. No damage comes as long as it stays unused, blended into your diesel — only when the engine works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Crystals and corrosion stay through the next tankful, and AdBlue splits back from your diesel, and so thinning it can't work. That is why the flush counts more, and turning the key "to see" costs more with AdBlue than almost any other mistake — in Corkerhill or the centre of Pollok equally.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Anywhere around Glasgow City the car has come to rest, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest part of a fuel system to clear.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Pollok: how it ends up there
Plenty of motors place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and in dim light the two may appear identical. No one means it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the driveway, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it occurs in one of a few familiar ways. The refill is hurried outside the local primary school, because the dash flashed with a warning as the kids were taken in. In the evening, a container goes in on a drive near Cornalee Road. Or a driver new to that flap tops up the vehicle after dark, stopped in the car park outside the pub in the village.
It comes up most in a rental, a new vehicle, a fleet car, or the spare vehicle of a family with one of each fuels — the vehicles drivers use least. Keep it off: that's the first step to the same mistake, wherever in Pollok or the remainder of Glasgow City you are.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Pollok, and the engine started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Given any running time, it goes on to the injection pump and each injector, after passing via your filter and lines.
Lumpy running, smoke, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: each may show up, perhaps midway across Pollok or coming back from Haugh Hill. No starting it again to test: pull over once it is safe, then switch it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Pollok lies under a mile from the M77; if you were on it, leave by the next junction and pull up safely rather than carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into your system. That's why a hop across Pollok to park beside Pollok Baptist Church and a drive of under 10 miles for Glasgow are very distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
We do all of the rinsing where the car has come to a stop, and once the motor has been run there is more of it. Permanent damage is very unusual when it's spotted soon.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves around Pollok
A road by Priesthill United Reform Church, a driveway, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere the vehicle has come to rest around Pollok, our technicians travel to it. Before anything else our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether the motor has run, because those replies determine this work.
Then the tank is emptied where the vehicle waits, so the contaminated fuel and the AdBlue come out together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is cleaned right through since residue will not wash away by itself. A test of the vehicle comes last, after fresh diesel is added and the filter gets cleaned or, if necessary, replaced. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime the system, and that is the last step. You head off as soon as our engineers have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a driveway in Pollok or in a bay at Priesthill & Darnley. It is checked on new diesel to confirm it runs properly before our technicians leave. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers want.
About Pollok
Pollok is a suburban area in Glasgow City, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 24 metres, with Roughmussel, Priesthill, and Hurlet nearby. Pollok lies approximately 5.3 miles from Glasgow city centre and is characterised by predominantly flat-type housing. Pollok is home to around 6316 residents and forms part of the wider Glasgow urban area. Pollok's location near the river contributes to its scenic setting.
AdBlue drains across Glasgow City, Pollok included
The vans that answer AdBlue calls in Pollok also cover the locations round it, Roughmussel, Priesthill and Hurlet among them, and most of Glasgow City beyond, across the G postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a border or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
No moving is needed. In Pollok, a residential suburb, a mobile service works: the car is emptied where it stands, be it on a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Pollok: the cost of fixing it
There is no honest single price, because the jobs aren't the same. Three things move the price: whether your engine has been running and for how long, how much AdBlue got in, and where the vehicle is. That last one comes down to whether a technician can reach it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight spot behind Cineworld.
Before a quote, not afterwards, every enquiry from Pollok opens with three questions: the liquid, the quantity, and whether it ran. With them, a range shrinks to one firm figure.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the price by phone. Then you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Pollok: still alongside your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Keys out; motor and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest, across Pollok or wherever in Glasgow City, once you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and if it ran.