Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Scothern
AdBlue in your diesel tank? Then leave your engine off — and your ignition as well. Urea mixed in water is what AdBlue is. As it is water-based, it will not burn and won't blend with diesel; damage just starts when your pump starts drawing it. If your engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully purged where the vehicle stands around Scothern. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Scothern: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- So no one can turn your ignition on, take your keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Call us from where you are. A postcode starting LN2 2, or the name of the closest street, brings our van to you without a search.
Don't:
- Moving your vehicle just a few yards is no reason to start the motor.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding more diesel won't weaken it.
- Leave it where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance up Church Street.
- Do not try to drain the vehicle yourself by the roadside.
On a forecourt around Scothern, whether it is the UK or another one, ask the staff to help you roll your car away from the pump. On the drive, your car remains just where it was left.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. The behaviour is not at all like diesel's. The pickup sucks fuel from the lowest part of the tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: being heavier than diesel, it sinks. A motor filled on a drive in Stainton by Langworth yesterday evening and not started since counts as the straightforward one. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up so far — but when your motor turns, that is what is pulled first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
From there it causes 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's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps labouring on the parts it gets to for as long as it remains there. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage overnight for a car parked around Scothern. Only inside the tank, it stays stable. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and every injector depend on diesel running through them, and so the water content damages them by itself.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
A problem of thinned fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol from the Lincoln Kiln Dried Logs. Mixed into the diesel and sitting unused, it's no threat for now; running the motor does the harm.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Because it does not burn, running it through is not an option. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be thinned. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting your motor "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Langworth or the middle of Scothern.
The same good news holds as with petrol. Anywhere around Lincolnshire the car has come to rest, an unrun engine means the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to clear.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Scothern?
It is not deliberate. Many vehicles have the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and mixing them up is simple after dark. Mostly it's never the forecourt: a driver picks up a container heading home and tips it in at home.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. The refill gets hurried outside Ellison Boulters Church of England Primary School, because your dash flashed with a warning as the children were taken in. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off School Crescent. Or someone new to that flap tops up the car after dark, stopped in the car park by Bottle & Glass.
It takes place most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it switched off: that is the first step to the same mistake, wherever around Scothern or the remainder of Lincolnshire you are.
Started the motor with AdBlue in your diesel tank in Scothern?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Via the fuel filter, through the lines, and — with any running — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Maybe coming back from Grange Park, or part way across Scothern, your motor might go lumpy, smoke, lose pace, flash your dash or cut out. Once you safely can, pull over then turn it off — without turning it on again to see. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Scothern lies under 25 miles from the M180; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up safely rather than driving on.
How far it went matters. A few hundred yards across Scothern to the car park by St Germain is a very different job from a run towards Lincoln, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with every mile. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once your engine has been run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where your car has ended up. Lasting damage is very unusual when it is spotted soon.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Scothern: what it takes
Anywhere it has come to rest in Scothern — a filling station, a layby, a driveway, a road beside Scothern Recreation Centre — our van comes to the car. The job rests on three replies, which we get before all else — which fluid went in, the quantity, and if the motor has run.
On the spot, your tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one. The fuel system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Testing your car comes last, after clean diesel goes in and the filter is flushed or, where needed, swapped. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour visit once we arrive, if your motor hasn't run. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy forecourt is no problem, and it is quiet enough for a residential street after dark.
Finally, the system is primed with new diesel. At that point our technicians start the car and you head off, whether from a parking bay outside Lincoln Central or a driveway around Scothern. We make sure it runs smoothly on clean diesel before we leave. No garage is required at any point, with the entire job done on the spot. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both at the end.
About Scothern, for a moment
Scothern is a small village in Lincolnshire, situated near the River Witham and close to the city of Lincoln. Scothern has a low elevation of around 15 metres, and its riverside setting provides a distinctive character to the village. Scothern is home to approximately 975 residents, who mostly live in detached houses, and is located near other local places such as Sudbrooke and Dunholme.
Scothern and Lincolnshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Our teams that answer AdBlue jobs around Scothern also cover the spots around it, Sudbrooke, Sudbrooke Park and Dunholme among them, and most of Lincolnshire beyond, across the LN postcode area. Assuming doesn't help by a border or somewhere tricky to describe; phone and check.
A van that comes to you fits Scothern, a village: there's no need to bring the vehicle to us, because we drain it on the spot, on a drive, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Scothern: the cost of fixing it
Not one single price could be fair, because every job differs. What shifts the cost is, first of all, whether your engine has run and for how long; then how much AdBlue went in; and finally where the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight gap behind LiteHouse Community Centre.
With that in mind, each enquiry from Scothern begins by asking the identical trio — what was put in, what quantity, whether the engine ran — ahead of a quote. With those replies, the range shrinks to one fixed figure.
You hear that price on the phone, before anybody heads out, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. While our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: many cover misfuelling.
Alongside the vehicle around Scothern, right now?
Then, touch nothing — that is the best move there is. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, in Scothern or wherever within Lincolnshire.