AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Portknockie? Don't Start It
AdBlue in the diesel tank? Then leave the motor off — and the ignition too. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. The trouble begins once it is pulled through the lines — it won't burn, and it will not blend with diesel. In Portknockie, AdBlue in a diesel tank caught before your motor runs normally comes down to a drain and a thorough flush, just where your car is. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Portknockie, AdBlue in your diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- Pull your keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- If you're anywhere near moving traffic, put your hazards on.
- Keep the till receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what went in and about how much.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting AB56 4, or simply the name of a street close by, and so phone from the car.
Don't do these:
- Shifting the car even a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment your ignition comes on, and so keep it off.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way up Commercial Road.
- No draining it yourself, either, at the roadside.
The attendants working at any Portknockie filling station — the the nearest petrol station among them — will normally help rolling it aside if you ask. If you are on your own drive, leave it exactly where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to travel through one.
Fuel blends; AdBlue, after poured in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. It sinks, because it's denser than diesel, and pools low where the intake takes its supply from. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits beneath the diesel, which is how a vehicle topped up in Cullen last night and never started remains the straightforward one, as long as no one touches your key.
Two kinds of harm follow from there. Crystals and corrosion. As the water dries, it leaves urea that crystallises in filters and narrow channels; and, because it eats at some metals, each part it reaches suffers for as long as it remains in there. Overnight, a car sitting in Portknockie with AdBlue through its pipework gets worse; if it is only inside the tank, it doesn't. Diesel protects the high-pressure pump and every injector as it passes; water gives no lubrication, which is a second form of damage.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is commonly more significant than petrol
Petrol put into a diesel on Tesco's forecourt makes your fuel watery — that's the main fault. Damage just comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and left in the tank, it does none.
AdBlue in a diesel is a problem of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. It does not stay mixed, so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion do not wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the engine "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the car is in Lintmill or the middle of Portknockie.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere in Moray your car has come to rest, an unrun engine leaves the AdBlue yet in the tank: the easiest bit of any fuel system to empty.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Portknockie: how it ends up there
It's not on purpose. Many vehicles have the AdBlue inlet beside the diesel inlet, now and then behind one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. A bottle bought when driving home and tipped in outside the house, instead of at the forecourt, is the typical route.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the car. In the evening, a bottle is tipped in on a driveway near Victoria Street. Or a driver new to that flap tops up the car in dim light, parked in the car park by The Seafield Inn.
The least familiar vehicles see it the most — hire cars, new cars, company ones, and the spare motor in a home with both fuel types. Anywhere in Moray, Portknockie as well, the mistake does not change, and nor does the first response: keep it switched off.
Portknockie: started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. It's been sucked through the filter and your lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has reached your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Watch for lumpy running, exhaust smoke, lost power, lights on the dash, or a stall — returning from Cullen Golf Club, say, or part way across Portknockie. No starting it again to test: stop when safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
Portknockie sits over 50 miles from the M90; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop somewhere safe instead of driving on.
A quick hop across Portknockie to the car park by Portknockie War Memorial is one matter; heading for Aberdeen, under 50 miles away, is something else, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So distance matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
There's more to flush once the engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where your car has stopped. Long-term damage is very uncommon when it's caught early.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves around Portknockie
A road beside Portknockie Fishermen's Memorial, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: anywhere your vehicle has come to rest in Portknockie, our technicians travel to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, about how much, and if the motor has run, since those replies determine this work.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one when the tank is emptied, on the spot. The fuel system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. A test of the vehicle follows at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the fuel filter gets cleaned or, if needed, swapped. Not run? In that case expect roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they run quiet enough not to disturb the neighbours at night.
The final step is to bleed the fuel system on new diesel. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where the vehicle is parked, outside Keith or on a drive around Portknockie. Our technicians confirm it runs correctly on new diesel before we go. Since the job is done in its entirety where the car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Portknockie itself
Portknockie is a small coastal village in Moray, situated on the north-east coast of Scotland, with a population of around 1048 people. Portknockie has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant, and the village is located near other small communities such as Seatown and Findochty. Portknockie sits at an elevation of 32 metres, looking out to the North Sea, and is within a short distance of the Bauds of Cullen. Portknockie is also relatively close to the city of Aberdeen, which is 47.7 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Portknockie and Moray
AdBlue call-outs in Portknockie are passed to teams that cover the towns around it — Seatown, Bauds of Cullen as well as Findochty — and much of Moray beyond, across AB postcodes. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
No towing is needed. In Portknockie, a coastal village, a van that comes to you fits: your car is emptied on the spot, be it in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Portknockie
No flat price could be honest, because each job differs. Whether your engine has run, 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 drive is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight gap behind Portknockie Civilians War Memorial.
That's why each call from Portknockie starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it has run. The answers turn a range into a straight quote.
Before anyone sets off, you hear the price by phone. And you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Check your policy whilst we are on the way: many carry misfuelling cover.
Still beside the car in Portknockie?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus whether it ran is everything our engineers need. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest throughout Moray, Portknockie included.