Straidarran: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, the ignition stays off and so does the engine. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor blends, and nothing happens till your motor pulls it round. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually drained and thoroughly purged where your car sits around Straidarran. First, ring us on 0333 366 0103.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Straidarran: the first few minutes
Do:
- Pull your keys out, and so nobody switches the ignition on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or the receipt tells us the fluid and the quantity, and so do not throw it away.
- Ring just where you are. Quote a BT47 4 postcode or the nearest street sign, and no one has to hunt for you.
Not to do:
- Not even briefly, and not to roll your car: the motor remains off.
- Your ignition stays off: on lots of diesels, switching it on is enough to run your fuel pump.
- AdBlue doesn't mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel won't thin it.
- Do not drive the car anywhere, not even a short way up Crown Street.
- Draining your tank yourself beside the road isn't worth trying.
Moving your car away from the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Straidarran forecourt you're on, the the nearest petrol station included. At your own drive, do not touch it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The engine is not what AdBlue is made for; the exhaust is. Its own tank holds it, and from there it is sprayed into the exhaust, where it treats the gas. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it keeps separate instead of mixing — entirely unlike fuel. It sinks, since it is heavier than diesel, and settles low where the pickup takes its fuel from. The first thing the system pulls through, once it runs, is the AdBlue. So a vehicle that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Foreglen last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has sucked it in.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. What remains once the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow passages and block filters. On top of that, it eats at some metals in a fuel system, and carries on until it's cleared out. Lines holding AdBlue spell damage overnight for a vehicle sitting in Straidarran. Only inside your tank, it stays stable. Diesel lubricates the injection pump and every injector as it passes; water gives none of that, which is a separate kind of damage.
AdBlue in a diesel: why it's regularly worse than petrol
An issue of thin fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol at the another forecourt nearby. Harm just comes from running on it. Mixed into your diesel and sitting in your tank, it does nothing.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different matter: not thin fuel, yet no fuel at all. It does not burn, so it can't just be run through. Whether your car sits in Feeny or the centre of Straidarran, firing it up "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than nearly any other error, and the flush matters for more. Why: it will not stay blended, so watering it down fails; and deposits and corrosion survive the following tankful.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. If the motor hasn't run, the AdBlue is still inside the tank, and that tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in County Londonderry your car is sitting.
Straidarran: how AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap — may appear the same. Nobody means it; many designs invite it. It mostly happens outside the house, from a container bought en route home, rather than at the filling station.
The ways it occurs are few and familiar. A warning light comes on during the school run, and the top-up happens in a hurry outside the local primary school. In the evening, a container is tipped in on a driveway close to Crom Street. One more pattern: darkness, the car park outside the pub in the village, and a driver opening that flap the first time.
It comes up most in a rental, a new vehicle, a fleet motor, or the other car in a home with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people use the least. Wherever you're in Straidarran or the rest of County Londonderry, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Straidarran?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. It has been pulled through the filter and the lines, and if the motor ran for any time, it has got to the high-pressure fuel pump and the fuel injectors.
Watch for rough running, smoke, lost power, warnings on your dash, or a stall — returning from the green space at the edge of the village, say, or midway across Straidarran. No starting it again to test: pull over when safe, then switch everything off. More of that is pulled through with each start.
On the M77, over 50 miles from Straidarran, the first junction is where to leave, and somewhere sensible is where to stop — not carrying on.
Every mile carries the AdBlue further into your system. That's why a hop across Straidarran to park near the centre and a drive of under 15 miles for Derry are such separate jobs. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the engine has been run. If it is spotted quickly, long-term damage is very rare.
Straidarran: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
A road by a street just off the centre, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt: anywhere your car has come to rest in Straidarran, we come to it. Three answers shape the job, and so before anything else our technicians ask which fluid got in, about the amount, and whether the engine has run.
Then your tank is emptied where the car sits, so the tainted fuel and the AdBlue come out together. A careful flush matters far more after AdBlue than after petrol, because residue will not wash away by itself. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. About half an hour on site is usual for most jobs when the engine has not run. Low-noise enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a working forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Clean diesel goes in to prime the fuel system, and that's the last step. You head off as soon as our engineers have started it, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in Straidarran or in a space at the nearest station. Before we go, we confirm it is running properly with new diesel in. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never has to go to a workshop. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers ask for.
About Straidarran and where it is
Straidarran is a locality in County Londonderry, situated inland at an elevation of around 130 metres, approximately 11 miles from Derry. Straidarran is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is surrounded by nearby places such as Ballyrory, Park, and Banagher. Straidarran has a population of around 842 residents, making it a small but distinct community in the region.
Straidarran and County Londonderry: AdBlue drains across the area
Ballyrory, Park and Banagher are among the places around Straidarran that the same teams serve, together with most of County Londonderry beyond, over the BT postcode area. Close to a border, or anywhere tricky to pin down? Checking is better than assuming, and so ring.
Wherever your car stands — your drive at home, a residential street, a car park, a forecourt — our engineers drain it there, and there's no need to take it to us; that suits Straidarran, a small village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Straidarran
Since each callouts vary, a single price wouldn't be fair. The cost moves 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 a van can reach it safely, which is easier on an open driveway than in a tight space behind the far end of the built-up part.
That is why every call from Straidarran starts with the same three queries, asked before giving a figure, not after: what went in, how much, and if it has run. Given those replies, a range narrows to one firm figure.
Before a van heads out, you are told the quote on the phone. And payment is on the day, 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.
In Straidarran and still next to your car?
Leaving the vehicle alone is, then, the most useful thing you can do. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder, across Straidarran or anywhere in County Londonderry, once you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, about what quantity, and if it ran.