AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in West End? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does your motor. Chemically, AdBlue is just urea in water. It does not burn, it doesn't mix with diesel, and the damage it does starts when the fuel system pulls it in. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around West End, is normally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it is caught before your engine has run. Nothing comes before calling 0333 366 0103.
Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around West End
Do these:
- Keys out — that way no one can switch anything on.
- Close to moving traffic? So put the hazards on.
- Hold on to your receipt or the empty bottle, so you can tell us what was put in and roughly how much.
- Ring right where you are. Say a EH2 4 postcode or the nearest street name, and no one has to hunt for you.
Never do these:
- Shifting your car even a few yards is no reason to start the engine.
- Many diesels run their pump the moment your ignition goes on, so keep it off.
- AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel will not thin it.
- Leave the vehicle where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short way along Canning Street.
- No emptying it yourself, either, at the roadside.
At a forecourt around West End, whether it is the JET or another one, ask the staff to help you push the car clear of the pump. At your own drive, do not touch it at all.
What does AdBlue do in a diesel tank?
AdBlue is made for your exhaust, not the motor. From a dedicated reservoir it is fed straight to your exhaust, cleaning what your motor emits. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it.
It doesn't blend. After it's tipped into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. The intake takes fuel from the deepest part of that tank, and that's precisely where AdBlue ends up: being denser than diesel, it sinks. The first thing the fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in New Town last night, and hasn't been started since, is still the easy case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
After it is drawn in, the damage 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 running on the parts it hits for as long as it stays there. By daybreak, a car parked in West End with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it's only in that tank, nothing changes. And there's the water: it brings no protection to the parts that need it the most — the injection pump and each injector.
Petrol or AdBlue in a diesel: why AdBlue is commonly worse
Put petrol in a diesel at the BP and you have an issue of thin fuel. No harm comes while it sits put, mixed into the diesel — only once your motor works on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid itself is plainly the wrong one. Since it doesn't burn, running it through is not an option. Deposits and corrosion stay through the following tankful, and AdBlue separates back from the diesel, so thinning it won't help. That is why the flush counts so much, and turning your key "to see" does more harm with AdBlue than almost any other slip — in Coates or the centre of West End alike.
The good news is the same as with petrol. If the engine hasn't run, the AdBlue is still in your tank, and your tank is the quickest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever across City of Edinburgh the car is standing.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in West End
Plenty of vehicles put the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, occasionally behind a single flap, and after dark the two may appear the same. Nobody means it. It usually occurs at home, from a bottle grabbed en route home, not at the filling station.
A few familiar ways account for most cases. Midway through the drop-off, the dashboard flags it up, and outside the local primary school the top-up is rushed. A driver tips the bottle in outside their house, right off Atholl Crescent Lane, as the day ends. Or someone new to that flap refills your car after dark, stopped in the car park outside Teuchters.
It crops up most in a rental, a new car, a fleet vehicle, or the other car of a family with one of each fuel types — the vehicles people use the least. Same mistake, same first response — leave it switched off — anywhere you are around West End or the rest of City of Edinburgh.
Started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in West End?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in the tank. Given any running time, it goes on to the high-pressure pump and each injector, having passed via the fuel filter and lines.
You may notice the motor running unevenly, smoking, losing power, showing warning lights or cutting out, perhaps on the way back from Rutland Square Gardens or halfway across West End. Stop as soon as it is safe, switch off, and do not restart it to check. Each start pulls more of it through.
If you were on the M8, under 5 miles from West End, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible rather than pressing on.
Distance matters: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so heading for Edinburgh, under a mile away, gives a far bigger job than crossing West End to the car park by Scottish Arts Club. About how far it had come is worth telling us.
Wherever your car came to a stop is where all of it gets done, even with more to flush once the engine has been running. Lasting damage is very unusual when it's noticed early.
Emptying AdBlue in a diesel around West End: what it takes
A road beside Charlotte Chapel, a drive, a lay-by or a filling station: anywhere the vehicle has come to rest in West End, we travel to it. The work rests on three answers, which our technicians get first — what went in, the quantity, and whether the motor has turned over.
The contaminated diesel and the urea leave as one after that tank is emptied, right there. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, flushing counts: the whole system is flushed all the way through since residue won't flush away by itself. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Roughly half an hour once we arrive is usual for most jobs when the motor hasn't run. Quiet enough to use outside a house at night, and safe on a busy forecourt, our pumps are explosion-proof.
The last step is to bleed your system on clean diesel. You drive off as soon as we have fired it up, and it makes no difference whether the car is on a drive in West End or in a bay outside Haymarket. The test before we leave is that it runs correctly on new diesel. We do it all wherever the car has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a workshop. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and the VAT invoice — each handed over afterwards.
About West End itself
West End is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated near the coast and approximately 0.9 miles from Edinburgh city centre. West End occupies a relatively low elevation of 71 metres, with its landscape characterised by a mix of residential and commercial properties. West End is close to nearby places such as Tollcross, Fountainbridge, and Dean, and is predominantly composed of flat-type housing.
AdBlue drains in West End and across City of Edinburgh
AdBlue call-outs around West End go to vans that cover the places around it — Tollcross, Fountainbridge as well as Dean — and most of City of Edinburgh further out, throughout EH postcodes. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, ring and ask instead of assuming.
A mobile service suits West End, a residential suburb: you have no need to bring the car to us, since we empty it on the spot, in a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a filling station.
West End: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix
No single price would be honest, since every job is different. The cost changes first with how long, if at all, the motor has been running, and next with the amount of AdBlue that got in. After that it turns on where the vehicle is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open drive than in a tight spot behind William Gladstone Memorial.
Ahead of a figure, not after, each call from West End opens with the same three checks: the fuel, the amount, and if it ran. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
Before anyone heads out, you hear our quote by phone. Then payment is on the day, card or by phone, with nothing in advance. While our engineer is travelling, dig out your policy: many cover misfuelling.
West End: still alongside the car?
In that case, do nothing — that is the best step available. Keys out, engine off, ignition off. Call 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, plus if the engine ran is all we ask. Petrol in Diesel handles the rest throughout City of Edinburgh, West End too.