AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in West Mains? Keep It Switched Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, the ignition remains off and so does your engine. AdBlue is urea dissolved in water. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing happens until the motor pulls it round. Caught before the motor has been run, AdBlue in a diesel tank is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around West Mains. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around West Mains: the first few minutes
Do these:
- Remove your keys, which prevents someone switching the power on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is at all close.
- So you can tell us which fluid it was and about how much, save the till receipt or the empty bottle.
- Give us a postcode starting EH9 3, or whichever street lies nearest, and our van reaches you straight — so call from wherever you are.
Not to do:
- No starting the motor — not for a second, not to reposition the vehicle.
- Your ignition remains off: on many diesels, turning it on is enough to start your fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to dilute it. AdBlue doesn't dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Any driving at all is best avoided, even a short stretch up Langton Road.
- Beside the road, don't try emptying it on your own.
At a forecourt around West Mains, whether it is the Sainsbury's or another one, ask the staff to help you push the car away from the petrol pump. Stopped on your own drive? Then it remains exactly where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not your motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue is meant to go. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it's fed into the exhaust, and there it treats the gas. Neither side fits the other: urea doesn't belong in an injection pump, and a pump can't take urea.
Fuel mixes; AdBlue, after tipped in, will not. Its behaviour is nothing like fuel's. It drops, since it's denser than diesel, and pools down where the pickup draws its fuel from. Once the system runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to be pulled through. Before then it sits underneath the diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Grange Park yesterday and never switched on remains the straightforward case, as long as no one touches the key.
After it's sucked in, the damage comes in two forms. It eats at some metals found in fuel components, attacking any part it reaches till it is cleared completely. And once the water goes, the urea forms crystals that block filters and lodge in narrow passages. By daybreak, a vehicle parked in West Mains with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; if it is only in that tank, nothing changes. The water in it does damage of its own: the high-pressure fuel pump and the injectors depend on diesel to lubricate them, and water gives them nothing.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger issue?
Petrol put into a diesel on BP's forecourt leaves your fuel thin — that's the main problem. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside that tank it causes no harm; the damage comes from running the motor on it.
With AdBlue in a diesel, the liquid as such is simply the wrong one. It can't just be run through, because it does not burn. Nor can it be thinned, since it splits back out — and the next fill will not rinse away deposits or corrosion. So the flush matters for more with AdBlue, and trying the engine "to see", in the centre of West Mains or out in The Grange, costs more than almost any other slip.
The good news is the same as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the simplest job on any fuel system, and without running, the AdBlue stays in it — anywhere around City of Edinburgh your vehicle sits.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank around West Mains
It's not on purpose. Many cars keep the AdBlue inlet alongside the diesel inlet, occasionally under one flap, and muddling them up is simple after dark. Mostly it's not the forecourt: a driver picks up a bottle heading home and tips it in at home.
It tends to happen in a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is hurried outside the local primary school, because your dash flashed with a warning as the kids were taken off. A bottle is poured in at the end of the day on a drive just off West Mains Road. Else, in dim light outside John Leslie, your vehicle gets refilled by someone using that flap the first time.
It crops up the most in a hire car, a new car, a fleet vehicle, or the spare vehicle of a home with one of each fuels — the cars drivers use the least. Wherever you're in West Mains or the remainder of City of Edinburgh, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave the car off.
Already started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank in West Mains?
The AdBlue has left your tank, then. Through your filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — into the injection pump and every injector: that is where it travels.
Perhaps coming back from Permaculture Garden, or midway across West Mains, the motor may run rough, smoke, drop power, light up your dash or stall. Pull over when safe. Switch off. Leave the vehicle off rather than testing it again. More of it is pulled through with each start.
West Mains lies under 10 miles from the M8; if you were on it, leave by the first junction and pull up safely instead of driving on.
Each mile carries the AdBlue further into the system. That is why a hop across West Mains to park near David Brewster Statue and a drive of under 3 miles towards Edinburgh are such distinct jobs. Roughly how far had it come? Tell us.
Once the engine has run, the flush includes more, and all of it is done where the car has stopped. When it is spotted quickly, lasting damage is very unusual.
What draining AdBlue from a diesel involves in West Mains
Our technicians come to the car, wherever it has stopped around West Mains: a side street close to Jessie Chrystal MacMillan, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Three answers shape the work, so before anything else our technicians ask what went in, roughly the amount, and if the motor has turned over.
Next, emptying the tank on the spot takes out the contaminated diesel along with the AdBlue together. With AdBlue, more so than with petrol, the flush counts: the fuel system is flushed right through because residue will not wash out unaided. Fresh diesel goes in after your filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Engine not run? In that case count on roughly half an hour once we are there for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night.
Bleeding the system with clean diesel comes last. You head off as soon as we have started the car, and it makes no difference whether your car is on a drive in West Mains or in a space at Edinburgh Waverley. The check before our engineers go is that it runs smoothly on new diesel. Since the job is done in full where the vehicle is, a workshop never comes into it. The insurer is likely to want an engineer's report and your VAT invoice — each handed over once this job is done.
About West Mains itself
West Mains is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Edinburgh, sitting at an elevation of 84 metres near the river. West Mains is characterized by its predominantly flat-type housing and is situated close to nearby places such as Blackford, Newington, and Nether Liberton. West Mains is a relatively small community with a population of approximately 5501 residents, and is within walking distance of Edinburgh's city centre, just 2 miles away.
AdBlue drains in West Mains and across City of Edinburgh
AdBlue jobs in West Mains go to teams that serve the towns around it — Blackford, Newington plus Nether Liberton — and much of City of Edinburgh further out, throughout EH postcodes. Near a border, or somewhere awkward to pin down? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Anywhere your vehicle sits — your driveway at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — our technicians empty it there, and there's no need to bring it to us; that suits West Mains, a residential suburb, well.
What AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to put right around West Mains
Not one flat price could be honest, because every job is different. The cost shifts first with how long, if at all, the engine has been running, and next with the quantity of AdBlue that went in. After that it depends on where the car is and whether a technician can get to it safely, which is simpler on an open driveway than in a tight space behind Professor Joseph Black.
Before a quote, never after, every enquiry from West Mains opens with the same three questions: the liquid, the amount, and whether it ran. Those answers shrink a range down to one figure.
Before anyone sets off, you are told the price on the phone. And you pay on the day, card or over the phone, with nothing in advance. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van gets there.
West Mains: still next to your car?
Then the most handy thing you can do is nothing to the car. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Ring 0333 366 0103 then tell us it is AdBlue, about how much, and if it has run. Petrol in Diesel takes it from there, in West Mains or anywhere in City of Edinburgh.