Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Slamannan
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, leave your motor off then leave the ignition off. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. The trouble begins once it's pulled through your lines — it won't ignite, and it won't blend with diesel. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the car stands in Slamannan. No step comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Slamannan: AdBlue in your diesel tank
To do:
- Remove your keys, and that prevents someone turning the power on.
- Put your hazards on if you are anywhere near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the amount, and so don't throw it away.
- The van finds you fastest with a postcode starting FK1 3, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the car.
Don't do these:
- No starting your motor — not briefly, not to reposition your car.
- Your ignition stays off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not thin it.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, including a short stretch along Station Road.
- No draining it yourself, at all, on the verge.
The attendants working at any Slamannan forecourt — the Esso included — will normally help pushing it aside if you ask. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains just as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The engine isn't what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it's fed into your exhaust, and there it cleans the gas. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps apart rather than blending — quite unlike fuel. The pickup sucks fuel from the deepest part of the tank, and that's exactly where AdBlue settles: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Before then it waits beneath your diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Jawcraig last night and not switched on stays the simple one, provided nobody touches your key.
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 working on the parts it hits for as long as it remains there. Lines carrying AdBlue spell damage by morning for a vehicle sitting in Slamannan. Only inside the tank, it stays the same. Diesel protects the injection pump and every injector as it flows; water gives none of that, and that is a separate kind of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it is regularly worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you end up with after fuelling a diesel with petrol at the Tesco. Harm only comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left inside the tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. It doesn't burn, so it can't just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, because it splits back out — and the following tankful won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts for more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Slamannan or out in Roughrigg, costs more than almost any other error.
As with petrol, there's good news. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits just in your tank, the easiest bit of the entire system to empty, anywhere the car has stopped in Falkirk.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Slamannan?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to the diesel filler, sometimes under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Usually it's not the forecourt: someone picks up a bottle driving home and pours it in at home.
A couple of familiar ways cover the majority of them. The refill is hurried outside the local primary school, because the dash lit up with a warning as the children were dropped in. A driver tips the container in at home, just off High Street, as the day ends. 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 happens most in the motors motorists know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you are around Slamannan or the remainder of Falkirk, it is the same slip and the same first answer: leave it off.
Started your engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Slamannan?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in that tank. Through your filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it travels.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, lost power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any might show up, maybe part way across Slamannan or coming back from Pleamuir Wood. No restarting to test: stop when safe, then switch everything off. Each start pulls more of it through.
Leave the M80, under 10 miles from Slamannan, by the next junction and park safely, rather than driving on.
A quick hop across Slamannan to the car park by War Memorial is one matter; heading towards Stirling, under 15 miles away, is another, since every mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush takes in more, and all of it is done where the car has stopped. If it is spotted early, long-term damage is very unusual.
Slamannan: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
Anywhere it has come to rest around Slamannan — a forecourt, a lay-by, a drive, a street by Boer War Memorial — our van comes to the car. Before anything else our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if the engine has been run, because those answers determine this work.
Right there, your tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. A careful flush matters far more after AdBlue than with petrol, because residue won't clear out on its own. After that, the fuel filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a test of your vehicle. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs where your motor has not run. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Priming your system with fresh diesel comes last. Then our engineers fire it up and you head off, whether from a parking space at Caldercruix or a driveway in Slamannan. Before we leave, our technicians confirm it's running smoothly with new diesel in. The entire job is done where the car is, so it never needs to go to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Slamannan itself
Slamannan is a village in central Scotland, situated on the banks of the River Avon at an elevation of 157 metres. Slamannan lies near the villages of Binniehill, Crossburn, and Limerigg, and is approximately 12.9 miles from the city of Stirling. Slamannan has a population of around 899 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Slamannan is located in a scenic area, with the Ochil Hills nearby.
AdBlue drains across Falkirk, Slamannan included
Over the FK postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in Slamannan serve most of Falkirk as well, Binniehill, Crossburn and Limerigg among them. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of assuming.
Wherever the car sits — a driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — we empty it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits Slamannan, a village, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Slamannan?
No single price could be fair, since every job differs. What shifts the price is, firstly, 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 our van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Slamannan Library.
What was put in, how much, plus whether it ran: each Slamannan enquiry begins by asking exactly those, ahead of a figure, never afterwards. When they are answered, a range turns into one fixed figure.
Before a van sets off, you are told the quote by phone. Then you pay on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Beside the car around Slamannan, still?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, around Slamannan or anywhere around Falkirk.