What Now? AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Stotfield
What to do about AdBlue in a diesel tank comes down to one thing more than any other: whether your motor has been run since it went in. Anywhere your vehicle stands — Muirton, Stotfield — don't start a motor that hasn't been started yet. Ring 0333 366 0103 with the key and motor still off. Across Stotfield, that is generally emptied and flushed on the spot. Pull over the moment you safely can and turn off, if it has been run. It's a bigger job, though step one doesn't change.
Compare what happened to a situation from the list below, anywhere across Moray you happen to be.
At the pump in Stotfield: AdBlue in a diesel
You are at the petrol pump, the nozzle or the bottle still in your hand, and you have just noticed the cap you opened was the wrong one. Perhaps you are at the the nearest petrol station, perhaps at the Tesco, maybe somewhere else around Stotfield.
In short: no better place exists to discover it. The AdBlue is inside that tank and nowhere else. Nothing has drawn it in.
Freeing the petrol pump is no excuse to run it — and so do not get back in. Ask the attendants to help you roll your car into a parking bay, keep the till receipt or the bottle, and call us from the forecourt. Draining it there at the petrol pump is fine if it can't be shifted, since the equipment is explosion-proof.
AdBlue in your diesel tank at home around Stotfield
The warning light had been on for days. You bought a bottle, poured it in on the driveway, and only when you put the empty bottle in the recycling did you look again at the cap. Houses just off Tullochs Lane get caught out as much as anywhere else.
Meaning? As long as your car has not been driven since, it is close to the pump case. Being reluctant to blend, AdBlue drops to the base in your tank and waits. One night standing alters none of that.
Next: stop an early move by keeping the keys indoors, then phone us. Your driveway is where it is drained, be it in Stotfield or Branderburgh. The pumps are quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Stotfield: set off with AdBlue in a diesel?
A mile or two beyond filling up, your motor started playing up: rough running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash. Maybe driving to Inverness, under 50 miles away, or simply down Paradise Lane.
The upshot: the system has drawn AdBlue through already. It's been through your filter and the fuel lines and, the further you went, into your high-pressure pump and your injectors. Each restart, like each mile, carries it on.
What to do: pull over where it's safe to do so then switch off. On the M90, over 50 miles from Stotfield, that means the next junction, not the services further on. Restarting it to check gets nothing — AdBlue never clears on its own. Phone, saying how far your vehicle was driven.
Hire, lease or company car with AdBlue in the wrong tank
It is a vehicle you have had for a week. The AdBlue filler sits right next to the diesel filler, which you did not know, since your own motor either has no AdBlue or keeps it somewhere else. Wherever you happen to be across Moray, any driver could be caught.
Put simply: one extra stage on top of the cases above, and those depend on whether it has run. Plenty of hire and company contracts want the owner to approve work on your car.
Your move: hire firm or fleet manager to begin with, us second, since settling it early saves time. If you are stuck in the car park at Elgin, or by Stotfield Disaster Memorial, while you wait for an answer, leave the vehicle off.
Stotfield: unsure whether it was AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Now and then, "I think so" is the most anyone can honestly say. A faint ammonia smell hangs near your filler, the bottle feels too light, and which cap came off is hard to recall. Possibly it happened in a hurry at the school gates at the local primary school, or on a friend's drive in Windyridge.
Meaning? Drips around the inlet don't touch the engine at all. Inside the diesel tank, by contrast, AdBlue damages it. You can't tell which by turning the key, and doing so would pull in any AdBlue that is in the tank.
Take it that it went in, and don't start your engine. Tell us what you saw on the phone. A clean tank looked at is a happier result than an already-run one drained.
Each AdBlue drain around Stotfield shares these stages
No matter the case, a single start applies. Three questions come when our engineers arrive — on a filling station, a driveway, a street by Captain G E Edwards DSO and Sergeant A Edwards VC Memorial Sundial or the car park at The Skerry Brae: the fluid, the amount, and whether the motor has been started. Those replies settle the work, and you get our price by phone, before anyone heads out.
AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some metals used in fuel systems, and so it won't rinse out on its own; that's why a full flush, after this drain, counts much more here than with petrol. Last come your filter, flushed or renewed as needed; clean diesel; and a test of the car. Where the motor hasn't been started, allow roughly half an hour once we arrive, for most jobs.
Finally, we start the engine. We confirm it runs correctly on new diesel before we leave. We do the whole job where the vehicle is, and long-term damage is very uncommon if it has been spotted quickly. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Worth knowing: many insurers offer misfuelling cover, and so a quick look at your policy as you wait is worthwhile.
About Stotfield
Stotfield is a coastal suburban area in Moray, situated near the towns of Lossiemouth and Branderburgh. Stotfield sits at a low elevation of 18 metres, looking out to the Moray Firth. Stotfield has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being particularly prevalent in the area. Stotfield is located within commuting distance of Inverness, the nearest city, which is 38 miles away.
Stotfield and Moray: AdBlue drains across the area
Over IV postcodes, the vans covering Stotfield — a residential suburb — work surrounding towns as well, Lossiemouth and Seatown included. Giving us your IV31 6 postcode pins you fastest of all.
No towing is needed, whether stopped in the centre of Stotfield or in a layby heading to Lossiemouth Playing Fields, so leave it where it is. Where it stands, that is where it is drained. If you are somewhere hard to explain, near Lossiemouth United Free Church or close to a boundary, ring and ask rather than assuming.
The one-line version
Unstarted? Leave the vehicle that way and phone. Whatever line fits, Petrol in Diesel handles from there on 0333 366 0103, throughout Moray and within Stotfield — after you pull over, turn off then ring, if it's run.