St Boswells: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. It doesn't burn, it does not mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the system draws it in. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and carefully flushed where the vehicle sits in St Boswells. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in St Boswells: the first few minutes
Things to do:
- So nobody can turn the ignition on, take the keys away.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- The empty bottle or the receipt shows us the product and the amount, so do not throw it away.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting TD6 0, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Never do these:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll the vehicle: your motor remains off.
- The ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run the fuel pump.
- Don't top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance along Jenny Moore's Road.
- No draining it yourself, either, on the verge.
Get the people behind the counter to help you roll your vehicle away from the island if you are on a forecourt in St Boswells, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or elsewhere. On that drive, your car remains just as it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Made for your exhaust, AdBlue has no business in the motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It doesn't combine. Once it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves not at all like diesel. It's heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and collects at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. When your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, and that is how a vehicle filled in Maxton last night and never started stays the straightforward one, provided nobody turns the key.
It does two kinds of harm from there. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps working on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. Where the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in St Boswells makes it worse. In the tank only, time does nothing. Water protects nothing. The high-pressure pump and each injector depend on diesel running through them, so the water part harms them in its own right.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's often worse than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have an issue of thin fuel. Damage only comes from driving on it. Mixed into the diesel and left in your tank, it causes nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a totally wrong substance. It can't simply be run through, since it does not burn. It doesn't stay mixed, so it cannot be weakened. And crystals and corrosion don't wash out with the next tank of fuel. That's why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, and why starting the motor "to see" costs more here than almost anywhere else, whether the vehicle is in Clintmains or the middle of St Boswells.
As with petrol, there's good news. If your motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in the tank, and your tank is the easiest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across Scottish Borders your car is standing.
St Boswells: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. It mostly happens outside the house, from a bottle bought en route home, rather than at the filling station.
Usually, it happens in one of a few familiar ways. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard warns, and outside the local primary school the refill is hurried. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a drive close to Hamilton Place. Else, in dim light outside the pub in the village, your vehicle is topped up by someone using that flap for the first time.
It occurs most in the vehicles drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever in Scottish Borders, St Boswells as well, the slip doesn't change, and neither does the first response: leave it off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around St Boswells?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer inside the tank. Through your filter, through the pipework, and — given any running time — into the high-pressure pump and every injector: that is how far it has gone.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a cut-out — coming back from St Boswells Green, perhaps, or part way across St Boswells. Once safe, stop and switch it off — without turning it on again to see. More of that is pulled through with each start.
If you were on the M8, under 50 miles from St Boswells, come off at the next junction and stop somewhere safe instead of pressing on.
Distance matters: each mile pushes the AdBlue further into your system, and so driving towards Edinburgh, under 50 miles away, makes a far bigger job than hopping across St Boswells to the car park by St Boswells Village Hall. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the motor has been run. Long-term damage is very unusual when it is spotted quickly.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in St Boswells?
A street beside St Boswells Parish Church, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere your car has stopped around St Boswells, our engineers travel to it. Three replies shape the work, and so before anything else we ask which fluid got in, about the amount, and whether the engine has turned over.
The polluted diesel and the urea leave together when that tank is drained, on the spot. Your system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Next, the filter: flushed, or replaced when it has to be. Then fresh diesel, and then a check of your car. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when your engine hasn't run. Low-noise enough for use outside a house at night, and fine on a busy forecourt, the pumps are explosion-proof.
Fresh diesel goes in to prime your system, and that is the final step. Then we fire it up and you drive off, whether from a parking bay by Tweedbank or a drive in St Boswells. Before we leave, we make sure it is running properly with fresh diesel in. The whole job is done where your car is, so it never needs to be taken to a garage. Insurers ask for a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and both come at the end.
About St Boswells
St Boswells is a village in the Scottish Borders, situated on the banks of the River Tweed at an elevation of around 90 metres. St Boswells has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being particularly prevalent, and is located near the towns of Dryburgh and Newtown St Boswells. St Boswells is close to the A68 road and has a population of approximately 1278 residents. St Boswells is also within commuting distance of Edinburgh, which is around 33.8 miles away.
AdBlue drains across St Boswells and Scottish Borders
The teams that answer AdBlue calls around St Boswells also cover the spots round it, Dryburgh, Newtown St Boswells and Charlesfield among them, and most of Scottish Borders beyond, across the TD postcode area. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to pin down? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
A mobile service suits St Boswells, a village: there's no need to bring your vehicle to us, since our technicians drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a forecourt.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around St Boswells?
No flat figure would be honest, since each job is different. Whether the engine has been running, and for how long, comes first in what moves the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of your car, since an open drive is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight space behind St Boswells Drinking Fountain.
Before any figure, not afterwards, every enquiry from St Boswells opens with three questions: the liquid, the amount, plus if it ran. Those answers shrink a range right down to a single figure.
You get that price by phone, before anyone sets off, and you pay on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
St Boswells: still alongside the vehicle?
Not touching your car is, then, the best thing open to you. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder, in St Boswells or anywhere within Scottish Borders, after you ring 0333 366 0103 to say it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if it ran.