AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Sluggans? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that's AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor mixes, and no harm happens until the engine pulls it through. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally drained and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits in Sluggans. Before you do anything else, call 0333 366 0103.
What to do right now, Sluggans: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Things to do:
- Pull your keys out, and so no one switches your ignition on.
- If you are at all close to moving traffic, put the hazard lights on.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the product and the quantity, and so don't bin it out.
- Our van locates you fastest with a postcode starting IV51 9, or simply the name of a street nearby, and so call from the spot.
Not to do:
- Moving your vehicle even a short way is no reason to fire up the motor.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to start the pump.
- AdBlue does not dilute in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra diesel will not weaken it.
- Keep the car where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way up Leasgeary Road.
- By the road, do not try emptying it yourself.
The staff on duty at any Sluggans forecourt — the the nearest petrol station among them — will usually lend a hand pushing it aside if you ask. At your own drive, don't move it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Meant for your exhaust, AdBlue has no place in the engine. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Neither side fits the other: urea does not belong in an injection pump, and an injection pump can't deal with urea.
Inside a diesel tank it acts very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It's heavier than diesel, so it sinks and collects at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup pulls fuel from. Once the pump runs, the AdBlue is first to go through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is how a car topped up in Achtalean yesterday and not switched on remains the straightforward one, as long as nobody touches your key.
It causes two kinds of damage from there. It attacks certain metals used in fuel systems, attacking whatever it touches till it's cleared from your system. And when the water evaporates, the urea forms crystals that clog filters and lodge in tiny channels. Pipes carrying AdBlue spell damage overnight for a car parked in Sluggans. Only in that tank, it stays the same. The water in it does harm of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's commonly worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you get from filling a diesel with petrol at the Portree filling station. It mixes with your diesel, and while it's inside the tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running the motor on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a fault of the wrong substance altogether. Not burning, it can't just be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates again — and the following tankful will not clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and trying your engine "to see", in the heart of Sluggans or out in Toravaig, costs more than almost any other mistake.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Never run? Then the AdBlue sits just in that tank, the simplest section of the whole system to empty, wherever the car has come to rest in Highland.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Sluggans: how it ends up there
Many motors place the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then under one flap, and after dark the two can appear identical. No one means it. It usually takes place outside the house, from a bottle grabbed en route home, rather than at the forecourt.
Mostly, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone refills the vehicle. In the evening, a container goes in on a drive close to Woodpark Road. Else, after dark by The Isles Inn, the vehicle gets topped up by a driver opening that flap for the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a new car, a company car, or the other car of a family with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers know least. Leave it switched off: that's the first step to the same mistake, anywhere in Sluggans or the rest of Highland you are.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sluggans, and the motor started?
Then the AdBlue has left that tank. It has been drawn through the fuel filter and your lines, and if the engine ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and the injectors.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard warnings or cutting out: any might appear, perhaps part way across Sluggans or returning from King George V Playing Field. Once you safely can, pull over then switch everything off — without restarting to test. With each start, more of it is pulled through.
Sluggans sits over 50 miles from the M8; if you were on it, leave at the first junction and stop somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
Mileage matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue deeper in, and so heading for Inverness, over 50 miles away, gives a much larger job than hopping across Sluggans to the car park by Third Ridge. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us.
There is more to clean out once the motor has run, and our engineers do all of it where the vehicle has come to a stop. Permanent damage is very unusual when it's noticed quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Sluggans?
A road by Portree Free Church, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: wherever the car has stopped around Sluggans, our engineers come to it. The work depends on three answers, and we get before all else — what went in, the quantity, and if the engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea come out as one when the tank is emptied, on the spot. Your system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. Next, the fuel filter: cleaned, or replaced if it must be. Then clean diesel, then a test of the car. Not run? In that case expect about half an hour once we are there for most jobs. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and fine on a working forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to bleed the fuel system on clean diesel. You drive off as soon as our technicians have started it, and it makes no difference whether the vehicle is on a driveway around Sluggans or in a space outside the nearest station. We make sure it runs properly on clean diesel before we leave. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report later, which is what insurers want.
About Sluggans, for a moment
Sluggans is a small coastal locality in the Highland region of Scotland, situated at an elevation of 31 metres. Sluggans lies near several notable places, including Sulaisiadar Mor, Portree, and Achadh aChoirce, and is approximately 73.8 miles from the city of Inverness. Sluggans is characterised by its semi-detached housing and a population of around 513 residents.
Sluggans and Highland: AdBlue drains across the area
Over the IV postcode area, the teams answering AdBlue jobs around Sluggans reach most of Highland too, Sulaisiadar Mor, Portree and Achadh aChoirce among them. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A mobile service suits Sluggans, a coastal area: there's no need to bring your vehicle to us, since our engineers empty it there, in a drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt.
Sluggans: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Every job differs, and so no single price would be honest. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the price. How much AdBlue was put in comes next, and then the position of your car, because an open driveway is simpler for a technician to get to safely than a tight space behind St. Mary's.
For that in mind, every call from Sluggans begins by asking the same trio — which fluid went in, how much, if it ran — before a quote. When those are answered, a range turns into one firm number.
Priced by phone before the engineer heads out, it is paid for that day — card or phone, no deposit. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van gets there.
Alongside the car around Sluggans, right now?
Then, the best thing to do with the vehicle is to leave it. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. After that Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Sluggans or anywhere within Highland.