Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Townhead
If AdBlue has got into the diesel tank, keep your motor off and leave your ignition off. Urea dissolved in water is all AdBlue is. Not like fuel, it neither ignites nor blends, and nothing happens till the engine pulls it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Townhead, is usually what AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the engine has been run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Townhead, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do at once
Do these:
- So no one can switch the ignition on, pull your keys away.
- Close to moving traffic? Then put your hazards on.
- Which product, and roughly what amount? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and our technicians can see.
- Ring us from where you are. A postcode starting ML5 2, or the name of the closest street, gets the van to you without a search.
Do not:
- Shifting your vehicle even a few yards is no reason to fire up the motor.
- Turning your key to ignition by itself sets the pump running on plenty of diesels. Skip it.
- Don't top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not mix in diesel; it separates out.
- Never drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short way up Teviot Street.
- By the road, don't attempt draining it yourself.
Ask the people behind the counter to help you move the vehicle away from the pumps if you're on a forecourt around Townhead, whether it's the BP or somewhere else. On your own driveway, don't move it at all.
AdBlue in a diesel tank: what it does
Not the motor but your exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it. No part in an injection pump is designed for this fluid — and no part of that was intended to go through one.
Tipped in with your diesel, it keeps apart rather than mixing — entirely different from fuel. The intake sucks fuel from the lowest part of your tank, and that is exactly where AdBlue ends up: as it is denser than diesel, it sinks. A car topped up on a drive in Blairhill yesterday evening and left unstarted is the straightforward case. No pump has sucked the AdBlue up yet — but once the engine runs, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of that tank.
It does two kinds of harm from there. 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, and so it keeps working on the parts it reaches for as long as it stays there. A motor left sitting in Townhead with AdBlue already in its lines is worse by the morning; one with AdBlue just in its tank isn't. Then there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that rely on it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel frequently the bigger problem?
A problem of thin fuel is what you end up with from filling a diesel with petrol at the Gulf. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it's in that tank it does no harm; the harm comes from running the engine on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is plainly the wrong one. Not burning, it cannot simply be run through. Nor can it be thinned, since it separates back out — and the next fill will not clear away crystals or corrosion. So the flush matters more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the heart of Townhead or out in Greenhill, does more harm than almost any other slip.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Never started? Then the AdBlue sits just inside your tank, the easiest section of the whole system to clear, wherever your car has come to rest across North Lanarkshire.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank in Townhead?
Plenty of vehicles place the AdBlue filler alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind one flap, and in dim light the two may look identical. No one intends it. Mostly it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Hurrying, outside the local primary school, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, someone tops up the vehicle. In the evening, a container goes in on a drive close to Trent Street. Else, after dark by La Ronde, your vehicle gets refilled by someone using that flap for the first time.
It crops up most in a rental, a new motor, a company vehicle, or the other car of a home with both fuel types — the vehicles drivers know the least. Wherever you are around Townhead or the remainder of North Lanarkshire, it is the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the vehicle off.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Townhead, and the motor started?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Given any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and every injector, having passed via the fuel filter and pipework.
Watch for rough running, smoke, falling power, lights on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Witchwood, perhaps, or part way across Townhead. When safe, stop then turn it off — with no restarting to see. With each start, more of that is pulled through.
On the M73, under 3 miles from Townhead, the first junction is where to leave, and anywhere safe is where to stop — not driving on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Townhead to the car park by Drumpellier Christian Fellowship is a very different job from a run towards Glasgow, under 10 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into the fuel system with each mile. Tell us about how far it had come.
There's more to flush once the engine has run, and we do all of it where the car has ended up. Permanent damage is very rare if it's noticed soon.
Townhead: how AdBlue is cleared from a diesel
The car stays put, whether that is a road beside Townhead Parish Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt around Townhead, and our van comes to it. Before anything else our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and if the engine has run, because those replies settle the work.
Next, draining that tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue in one go. With AdBlue, far more than with petrol, the flush counts: the whole system is cleaned all the way through because residue won't flush away unaided. Clean diesel goes in after the fuel filter is cleaned — or swapped, when it needs to be — and after that the car is tested. If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once our engineers arrive. Explosion-proof pumps make a live forecourt safe to work on, and they're quiet enough to spare the neighbours at night.
Last, the fuel system is bled with fresh diesel. Then our engineers start the engine and you head off, whether from a parking space outside Blairhill or a drive around Townhead. It's tested on fresh diesel to make sure it runs properly before our technicians leave. Since the job is done in its entirety where your car is, a workshop never comes into it. You receive a VAT invoice and an engineer report after that, which is what insurers want.
About Townhead itself
Townhead is a suburban area situated on the riverside in North Lanarkshire, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Townhead sits at an elevation of 86 metres, close to the nearby places of Gartsherrie, Drumpellier, and Sunnyside. Townhead is located approximately 7.2 miles from Glasgow, making it a commuter-friendly area. Townhead has a population of around 3222 residents, who enjoy the scenic riverside setting.
AdBlue drains across North Lanarkshire, Townhead included
AdBlue jobs in Townhead go to teams that cover the towns around it — Gartsherrie, Drumpellier as well as Sunnyside — and much of North Lanarkshire beyond, throughout ML postcodes. Assuming won't help close to a border or somewhere hard to describe; ring and check.
Townhead is a residential suburb, and a mobile drain suits it: whether your car is on a home drive, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt, our engineers drain it where it stands, so it never needs to be shifted to us.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around Townhead
Every job is different, so no fixed quote would be honest. Whether the motor has been running, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue went in comes next, and then the location of the car, since an open drive is easier for a van to get to safely than a tight spot behind Crannog.
Ahead of any figure, not afterwards, each call from Townhead begins with three questions: the liquid, the amount, and whether the engine ran. Those answers narrow the range down to a single figure.
The price is given on the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or over the phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it pays to look at yours before the van arrives.
Townhead: still next to the vehicle?
Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to your car. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, across Townhead or anywhere in North Lanarkshire, after you ring 0333 366 0103 saying it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran.