Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Tillydrone
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does your engine. AdBlue is urea mixed in water. As it is water-based, it won't ignite and never combines with diesel; damage only starts once the pump begins pulling it. In Tillydrone, AdBlue in a diesel tank found before your engine runs normally means a drain and a thorough flush, just where the vehicle is. Nothing comes before ringing 0333 366 0103.
What to do straight away, Tillydrone: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Do:
- Pull the keys out, so nobody switches your ignition on.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Hold on to the till receipt or the empty bottle, and so you can tell us what was put in and about how much.
- Our van finds you quickest with a postcode starting AB24 2, or simply the name of a street close by, and so phone from the spot.
Do not:
- Not even for a second, and not to roll the vehicle: your engine remains off.
- Switching your key to ignition alone sets your pump going on many diesels. Avoid it.
- Adding extra diesel does not help: AdBlue settles out instead of blending.
- Keep it where it is instead of driving it anywhere, even a short way down Tillydrone Avenue.
- Draining your tank yourself by the road is not worth trying.
Moving the car off the island is a job for staff to help with, wherever Tillydrone forecourt you're on, the BP or any other. At home, your car stays exactly as it is.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
Not the engine but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. From a separate reservoir it goes directly to your exhaust, cleaning what your engine lets out. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
Tipped in with the diesel, it stays separate instead of mixing — quite unlike fuel. It is heavier than diesel, and so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of your tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. A car filled on a driveway in Seaton yesterday evening and not started since is the simple case. Nothing has pulled the AdBlue up yet — though when the engine runs, that's what goes first, straight from the bottom of the tank.
Once it's drawn in, the harm takes two forms. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it's corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, so it keeps labouring on the components it reaches for as long as it remains there. A car left sitting around Tillydrone with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue only in its tank is not. Water protects nothing. The injection pump and each injector need diesel flowing through them, and so the water part damages them in its own right.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is often more significant than petrol
Put petrol in a diesel at the BOC and you have an issue of thin fuel. Damage just comes from running on it. Blended into your diesel and sitting inside that tank, it causes nothing.
The trouble with AdBlue in a diesel is a completely unsuitable substance. Because it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits again — and the next tankful won't clear away deposits or corrosion. So the flush counts more with AdBlue, and turning the key "to see", in the centre of Tillydrone or out in Hilton, does more harm than almost any other error.
With AdBlue, the good news is no different from petrol. Anywhere across Aberdeen City the car has stopped, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue yet in the reservoir: the easiest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Tillydrone
After dark, two caps side by side — the AdBlue cap and the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap — may look the same. Nobody means it; many layouts allow it. It usually takes place outside the house, from a container bought en route home, rather than at the filling station.
A couple of familiar ways account for the majority of them. The top-up is hurried outside the local primary school, because your dash flashed with a warning as the children were dropped in. After work, a container goes in on a driveway near Coningham Road. Another version: dim light, a pub car park outside Union Brew, and someone using that flap for the first time.
It happens most in the vehicles motorists know least: a hire car, a new vehicle, a company car, or the second motor of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Leave it off: that is the first response to an identical mistake, wherever around Tillydrone or the rest of Aberdeen City you are.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Tillydrone, and your engine started?
The AdBlue has left the tank, then. Via the filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the high-pressure pump and each injector: that's how far it travels.
Perhaps coming back from Woodland Border, or midway across Tillydrone, your motor might run rough, smoke, lose pace, light up your dash or cut out. Stop when safe. Turn off. Leave the car off rather than testing it again. Each start pulls more of that through.
Exit the M90, over 50 miles from Tillydrone, by the next junction and stop somewhere safe, not carrying on.
A quick hop across Tillydrone to the car park by Motte of Tillydrone is one matter; heading towards Aberdeen, under 3 miles away, is another, since each mile pushes the AdBlue further in. So mileage matters. Let us know roughly how far it had come.
Wherever the car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the motor has been run. If it is spotted early, permanent damage is very uncommon.
What clearing AdBlue from a diesel involves in Tillydrone
The vehicle stays where it is, whether that's a road near Downies Cairn, a driveway, a lay-by or a filling station around Tillydrone, and our van travels to it. Which fluid went in, roughly the quantity, plus if your engine has turned over: we check first, since those decide the work.
Right there, your tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea leave at once. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which counts more with AdBlue than with petrol, because what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. After that, your filter: cleaned, or changed if it has to be. After that fresh diesel, and then a test of the car. The majority of these jobs are a half-hour job once our engineers arrive, provided your engine hasn't run. Quiet enough for use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
Lastly, your system is primed with fresh diesel. You head off as soon as our technicians have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a driveway around Tillydrone or in a bay at Aberdeen. Our technicians check it runs properly on clean diesel before leaving. Our technicians do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to go to a workshop. Insurers want a VAT invoice and an engineer report, and you get both afterwards.
About Tillydrone itself
Tillydrone is a suburban area located on the coast of Aberdeen City, sitting at an elevation of 25 metres and approximately 1.5 miles from Aberdeen city centre. Tillydrone is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing and is situated near other local areas such as Old Aberdeen and Kittybrewster. Tillydrone has a population of around 5586 residents and is part of the larger Aberdeen urban area. Tillydrone is also relatively distant from major English cities, with London being around 399 miles away.
AdBlue drains across Tillydrone and Aberdeen City
The teams that answer AdBlue jobs in Tillydrone also cover the spots round it, Old Aberdeen, Hayton and Kittybrewster among them, and most of Aberdeen City beyond, across the AB postcode area. Assuming won't help by a border or somewhere hard to describe; phone and check.
A mobile service fits Tillydrone, a residential suburb: there's no need to bring the car to us, since we empty it there, on a driveway, a residential street, a parking area or a filling station.
AdBlue in a diesel tank in Tillydrone: the cost of fixing it
Because each callouts vary, a single figure wouldn't be honest. Three things move the cost: whether your engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue went in, and where your car is. That last one turns on whether a van can get to it safely, and an open drive is simpler than a tight space behind Arboretum.
Ahead of a quote, not after, every call from Tillydrone begins with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and if the engine ran. With them, a range narrows to a single firm figure.
Before anyone sets off, you hear our quote on the phone. Then you pay on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing in advance. While our engineer is travelling, dig out your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling.
Tillydrone: still alongside the car?
In that case, touch nothing — that is the most helpful step available. Keys out; engine and ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it's AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it's run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in Tillydrone or anywhere in Aberdeen City.