AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Stirling Village? Don't Start It
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Water with urea dissolved in it: that is AdBlue. Unlike fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and no harm starts till the engine pulls it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Stirling Village, is usually all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your engine has been run. Before you do anything else, phone 0333 366 0103.
Stirling Village, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- So nobody can turn your ignition on, take the keys out.
- Put the hazard lights on if you're at all close to moving traffic.
- Keep the receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what got in and roughly how much.
- The van locates you fastest with a postcode starting AB42 3, or just the name of a street close by, and so call from the car.
Things not to do:
- Do not start your engine, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Do not switch your ignition on. On many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Pouring in more diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Don't drive it anywhere, not even a short stretch down A90.
- No emptying it yourself, at all, at the roadside.
Moving your car away from the pumps is a job for attendants to help with, whichever Stirling Village forecourt you're on, the Shell or any other. At home, your car stays exactly where it was left.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
The motor is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it's injected into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in a pump, and a pump cannot take urea.
Inside a diesel tank it behaves very differently from fuel. It does not mix in. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of that tank, which is where the pickup draws fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Whitehill last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of that tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
Two kinds of harm come from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they settle in narrow channels and block filters. Worse, it attacks some metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it's cleared out. If the AdBlue is in the lines, waiting overnight in Stirling Village leaves it worse. In the tank alone, time costs nothing. Water lubricates nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, so the water content damages them in its own right.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is often worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the Esso and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with your diesel, and while it's in the tank it does no damage; the damage comes from running your engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is another matter: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Nor can it be watered down, since it separates again — and the next tankful won't rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more here, and trying your engine "to see", in the centre of Stirling Village or out in Meethill, does more harm than nearly any other mistake.
With AdBlue, the good news is no separate from petrol. Wherever in Aberdeenshire your car has stopped, an unstarted engine leaves the AdBlue still inside the tank: the easiest bit of any fuel system to empty.
Stirling Village: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
Plenty of cars place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and after dark the two can appear the same. Nobody intends it. Usually it's never the filling station: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and tips it in outside the house.
Usually, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, a parent refills the car. After work, a container goes in on a drive near Station Road. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside Rocksley Inn, in poor light, by somebody who has never opened that flap before.
The least known vehicles get it most — rentals, brand-new cars, company cars, and the spare car of a family with both fuel types. Same mistake, same first response — leave it off — wherever you are around Stirling Village or the rest of Aberdeenshire.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Stirling Village, and your engine started?
The AdBlue has left that tank, then. Given any running, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed through the fuel filter and pipework.
Lumpy running, smoke from the exhaust, dropping power, dashboard lights or cutting out: any might show up, perhaps midway across Stirling Village or returning from Dales Park. Stop when safe. Switch off. Keep it off rather than testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Leave the M90, over 50 miles from Stirling Village, by the next junction and park somewhere safe, rather than driving on.
Hopping across Stirling Village to the car park by Boddam Evangelical Church is one matter; heading towards Aberdeen, under 25 miles away, is another, because each mile carries the AdBlue deeper in. So mileage matters. Roughly how far it had come is worth telling us.
Once the engine has been run, the flush covers more, and all of it is done where the car has ended up. Long-term damage is very unusual when it's spotted soon.
Draining AdBlue in a diesel in Stirling Village: what it takes
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a street beside Boddam WW1 War Memorial, a drive, a layby or a forecourt in Stirling Village, and the van comes to it. Which fluid got in, roughly the quantity, and whether the engine has been run: our technicians check before all else, because those decide the work.
Then that tank is drained where your car sits, so the polluted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. The system is purged thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind does not rinse out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Finally, the fuel system is bled with clean diesel. Then our engineers fire it up and you set off, whether from a parking space at the nearest station or a driveway around Stirling Village. Before leaving, our engineers make sure it is running smoothly with fresh diesel in. No workshop is needed at any stage, with the whole job done on the spot. Your insurer will want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About Stirling Village
Stirling Village is a small coastal village in Aberdeenshire, situated near the towns of Boddam and Invernettie. Stirling Village has a population of around 638 people and is characterized by predominantly detached housing. Stirling Village sits at an elevation of 31 metres, looking out to the coastal scenery of the North Sea. Stirling Village is located approximately 24.8 miles from Aberdeen, the nearest city.
AdBlue drains across Aberdeenshire, Stirling Village included
Over the AB postcode area, the teams taking AdBlue call-outs in Stirling Village serve much of Aberdeenshire too, Boddam, Sandfordhill and Invernettie included. If you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask rather than guessing.
No moving is needed. In Stirling Village, a coastal village, a van that comes to you works: the vehicle is drained where it stands, be it in a drive, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
Stirling Village: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
Each job differs, so not one fixed price would be honest. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that got in. After that it depends on where the vehicle is and whether our van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Boddam WW2 War Memorial.
That is why each call from Stirling Village starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what got in, how much, and whether it's run. Their answers shrink a range down to one number.
Before a van sets off, you hear our quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover comes with many insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
Alongside the vehicle around Stirling Village, still?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to your car. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, the amount, plus if it ran is everything our technicians ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the remainder throughout Aberdeenshire, Stirling Village too.