Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Seskinore
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your engine. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and no harm starts till the engine pulls it round. Caught before the engine has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Seskinore. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Seskinore: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Pocket your keys, which prevents someone turning the power on.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting BT78 1, or the name of the nearest street, gets our van to you without a search.
Don't do these:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to shift the car.
- Plenty of diesels power their pump the moment your ignition comes on, and so keep the vehicle off.
- Pouring in more diesel doesn't help: AdBlue separates out rather than thinning.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Wallace Cottages.
- Emptying your tank on your own by the road isn't worth trying.
Get the people behind the counter to help you roll the vehicle off the island if you're on a forecourt around Seskinore, whether it's the the nearest petrol station or elsewhere. Parked on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not your engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own reservoir holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, where it treats the fumes. Not one side suits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts really differently from fuel. It doesn't mix in. It drops, since it's denser than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits underneath the diesel, and that is why a vehicle topped up in Beragh yesterday and never started remains the straightforward case, provided nobody touches the key.
From there it does two kinds of damage. It attacks certain metals found in fuel systems, working on any part it reaches until it's removed from the system. And once the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow passages. A car left standing in Seskinore with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Then there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that need it the most — the high-pressure pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a problem of thin fuel. Harm only comes from running on it. Blended into the diesel and left inside your tank, it causes none.
AdBlue in a diesel is another problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. It can't just be run through, since it doesn't burn. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates back out — and the following tankful will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Seskinore or out in Garvaghey, costs more than nearly any other mistake.
As with petrol, there is good news. Anywhere around County Tyrone the vehicle has come to rest, an unrun motor leaves the AdBlue yet inside the tank: the easiest part of a fuel system to clear.
Seskinore: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
It is not deliberate. Plenty of cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is simple in poor light. Mostly it is never the forecourt: someone buys a container driving home and pours it in at home.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. The refill is rushed outside the local primary school, because the dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off B842. Or your car is topped up in the car park at the pub in the village, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Keep it switched off: that is the first response to an identical slip, anywhere around Seskinore or the rest of County Tyrone you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Seskinore, and the engine started?
Then that tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. Through the fuel filter, through the pipework, and — given any running — into the injection pump and each injector: that's where it travels.
Expect rough running, smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from the green space at the edge of the village, perhaps, or midway across Seskinore. No starting it again to check: pull over once safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M77, over 50 miles from Seskinore, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue deeper into the system. That's why crossing Seskinore to park near the centre and a drive of under 50 miles for Armagh are very separate jobs. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the motor has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the vehicle has stopped. Permanent damage is very unusual when it is caught early.
Seskinore: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
Anywhere it has stopped in Seskinore — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street beside a street just off the centre — our van travels to the car. The work depends on three answers, which our technicians get first — which fluid was put in, the amount, and whether the engine has run.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave as one after that tank is emptied, on the spot. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing matters: the fuel system is flushed right through since what remains won't flush out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the vehicle is tested. About half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs where your engine has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
Priming your system with clean diesel comes at the end. At that point our engineers fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking bay at the nearest station or a driveway in Seskinore. It is tested on clean diesel to confirm it runs smoothly before we head off. Our technicians do it all wherever your car has ended up, and it never has to go to a workshop. Your insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About Seskinore and where it is
Seskinore is a rural locality in County Tyrone, situated inland at an elevation of 97 metres, and is located approximately 26.7 miles from Armagh. Seskinore is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is surrounded by nearby places such as Gortaclare, Fintona, and Eskra. Seskinore has a population of around 857 people and is part of the wider Northern Ireland region.
AdBlue drains across County Tyrone, Seskinore included
AdBlue call-outs around Seskinore are passed to vans that serve the towns around it — Gortaclare, Fintona plus Eskra — and most of County Tyrone further out, throughout BT postcodes. Phone and check rather than guess if you're close to a county line, or somewhere awkward to explain.
A van that comes to you suits Seskinore, a small village: you have no need to take the vehicle to us, because our engineers empty it on the spot, on a drive, a side street, a car park or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out in Seskinore?
Every job is different, so no single quote is honest. What moves the price is, first, whether the motor has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue was put in; and after that where the car is and whether a van can reach it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight gap behind the far end of the built-up part.
That is why each call from Seskinore starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it has run. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Our quote is quoted on the call, before anyone sets off; payment happens on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. Check your policy while we are on the way: plenty carry misfuelling cover.
Seskinore: still beside your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Seskinore or anywhere within County Tyrone, once you call 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and whether the engine ran.