Strichen: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
Engine off, ignition off: that is where you start if AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank. Urea mixed in water is all AdBlue is. Being water-based, it will not ignite and never combines with diesel; damage just comes when the pump starts pulling it. If the motor has not run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is usually emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle sits in Strichen. Phone 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in your diesel tank in Strichen
Do:
- Remove your keys, which prevents anyone switching the electrics on.
- If you're at all near moving traffic, put the hazards on.
- Which fluid, and about what volume? Hang on to the bottle or your receipt, and our engineers can know.
- The van finds you quickest with a postcode starting AB43 6, or just the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Not to do:
- Do not start the engine, even for a moment to move the vehicle.
- Switching your key to ignition by itself starts your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue will not blend, so it's pointless.
- Never drive the car anywhere, not even a short stretch along High Street.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the verge.
The attendants working at any Strichen forecourt — the the nearest petrol station included — will usually help pushing it clear if you ask. On your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What AdBlue does in a diesel tank
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. Stored in a dedicated tank, it's injected into the exhaust to clean the fumes. A fuel pump isn't designed to take it, and AdBlue was never intended to go through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps separate instead of blending — quite different from fuel. It drops, since it's heavier than diesel, and settles low where the intake takes its supply from. Once your system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Until then it waits underneath your diesel, and that is how a vehicle topped up in Balnamoon yesterday and not started stays the simple case, as long as nobody turns the key.
It does two kinds of harm from there. What remains when the water evaporates is urea, which turns into crystals: they lodge in narrow channels and block filters. On top of that, it eats at certain metals in the fuel system, and carries on until it is flushed out. Overnight, a car sitting in Strichen with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it's only inside that tank, it doesn't. The water in it causes harm of its own: the high-pressure pump and the fuel injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water offers them nothing.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is regularly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the another forecourt nearby and you have a fault of thin fuel. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst 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 cannot just be run through. It doesn't stay mixed, and so it cannot be diluted. 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 engine "to see" costs more here than nearly anywhere else, whether the car is in Denhead or the middle of Strichen.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits only in the tank, the simplest bit of the entire system to clear, anywhere the car has come to rest around Aberdeenshire.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around Strichen
Many cars put the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two may appear the same. No one means it. Mostly it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
Usually, it takes place in one of a few familiar ways. Hurrying, outside the local primary school, after a warning lamp flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the car. Someone pours the container in at home, just off Bridge Street, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap refills the vehicle in dim light, stopped in the car park outside the pub in the village.
It happens most in the cars motorists know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it switched off: that is the first response to an identical mistake, wherever around Strichen or the remainder of Aberdeenshire you happen to be.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Strichen, and the motor started?
If so, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Via the fuel filter, through the lines, and — with any running — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it has gone.
You may notice the motor running roughly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Market Stance or halfway across Strichen. No starting it again to test: pull over once safe, then turn it off. Each start pulls more of that through.
Strichen lies over 50 miles from the M90; if you were on it, exit by the first junction and pull up somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Strichen to the car park by Strichen War Memorial is a very different job from a run towards Aberdeen, under 50 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
There's more to flush once your engine has run, and we do all of it where your car has ended up. Very rarely does it leave long-term damage when it is spotted soon.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve in Strichen?
A street beside Strichen Stone Circle, a driveway, a layby or a filling station: wherever the vehicle has stopped in Strichen, our technicians come to it. The work depends on three replies, and we get first — which fluid went in, the quantity, and whether your motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one when your tank is drained, on the spot. Your system is flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Testing the vehicle follows at the end, after clean diesel goes in and the filter gets cleaned or, where necessary, replaced. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once we turn up, if your motor hasn't run. The pumps are explosion-proof, fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that's the last step. Firing it up comes next, and then you drive off from where the vehicle is parked, at the nearest station or on a drive around Strichen. The check before our engineers leave is that it runs properly on fresh diesel. The entire job is done where your car is, so it never needs to go to a workshop. Afterwards, there is the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Strichen and where it is
Strichen is a village in Aberdeenshire, situated on the riverside at an elevation of 58 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Strichen lies approximately 30 miles northwest of Aberdeen and is surrounded by nearby places such as Newburgh, Mountsolie, and New Leeds. Strichen has a population of around 959 residents and is located in a scenic area of northeastern Scotland. Strichen is also relatively distant from major cities in England, with London being around 427 miles away.
AdBlue drains in Strichen and across Aberdeenshire
Our vans that answer AdBlue jobs in Strichen also cover the locations round it, Newburgh, Mountsolie and New Leeds among them, and most of Aberdeenshire beyond, across the AB postcode area. Close to a border, or anywhere tricky to explain? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Wherever your vehicle stands — your driveway at home, a residential street, a car park, a filling station — we drain it there, and there's no need to take it to us; which suits Strichen, a village, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right in Strichen
Not one flat price could be honest, because each job differs. Whether your 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, because an open driveway is easier for a technician to reach safely than a tight space behind Strichen House.
That's why every call from Strichen starts with the same three questions, asked before giving a figure, not after: what was put in, how much, and if it's run. Those answers shrink a range right down to one figure.
The price is given during the call, before a van leaves; payment comes on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. While our engineer is on the way, dig out your policy: plenty cover misfuelling.
Still alongside your car in Strichen?
In that case, do nothing — that is the most helpful move there is. Keys out, motor off, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Strichen or anywhere in Aberdeenshire.