Wigtown: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
With AdBlue in the diesel tank, your ignition remains off and so does the motor. Urea dissolved in water is what AdBlue is. Being water-based, it won't ignite and won't blend with diesel; trouble just comes when your pump begins pulling it. A drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Wigtown, is generally all AdBlue in a diesel tank takes — if it's caught before the engine has run. Before you do anything else, ring 0333 366 0103.
Wigtown, AdBlue in the diesel tank: what to do right away
Things to do:
- Keys out — that way nobody can switch anything on.
- Put the hazards on if you are at all near moving traffic.
- The empty bottle or your receipt shows us the fluid and the quantity, so do not throw it away.
- Our van finds you fastest with a postcode starting DG8 9, or just the name of a street nearby, and so phone from the car.
Never:
- Don't start your motor, even for a moment to move the car.
- Don't switch the ignition on. On plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump.
- Do not top up with diesel to thin it. AdBlue does not dilute in diesel; it separates out.
- Keep the car where it is rather than driving it anywhere, even a short distance down High Street.
- Draining the tank on your own by the road is not one to try.
The attendants on duty at any Wigtown filling station — the the nearest petrol station included — will usually help rolling it aside if you ask. At home, the vehicle stays just where it is.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
Not the motor but the exhaust is where AdBlue belongs. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it. Nothing in it is meant to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is designed to handle it.
It doesn't combine. Once it's poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue acts nothing like fuel. It sinks, because it is heavier than diesel, and settles down where the intake takes its supply from. Once your pump runs, the AdBlue is top of the list to go through. Before then it waits underneath your diesel, which is why a vehicle filled in Kirkinner yesterday and never started stays the simple case, as long as nobody touches your key.
From there it causes two kinds of harm. It attacks certain metals used in fuel components, working on any part it reaches until it is cleared completely. And when the water evaporates, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and lodge in tiny channels. Lines holding AdBlue mean damage overnight for a vehicle parked in Wigtown. Only in the tank, it stays the same. And there's the water: it offers no lubrication to the components that rely on it most — the injection pump and each injector.
Why AdBlue in a diesel is frequently more significant than petrol
A problem of thinned fuel is what you end up with from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the another forecourt nearby. It mixes with your diesel, and while it's in your tank it does no harm; the damage comes from running the engine on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Since it does not burn, running it through isn't an option. Whether your car is in North Balfern or the heart of Wigtown, firing it up "to see" does more harm in this case than nearly any other slip, and the flush counts for more. The reasons: it won't remain mixed, so watering it down fails; and crystals and corrosion outlast the following tankful.
The same good news holds as with petrol. If the engine has not run, the AdBlue is still in that tank, and your tank is the simplest part of a fuel system to clear, wherever in Dumfries and Galloway the car is sitting.
How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Wigtown
It is not deliberate. Many cars keep the AdBlue cap alongside the diesel one, now and then behind a single flap, and muddling them up is easy after dark. Mostly it occurs with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
The ways it happens are few and familiar. Rushing, outside the local primary school, after a warning light flashed on during the school run, a parent refills your car. Someone pours the bottle in outside their house, right off North Main Street, as the day ends. Or the vehicle is topped up in the car park outside The Grapes Inn, in poor light, by someone who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the cars drivers know least: a hire car, a new motor, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Anywhere across Dumfries and Galloway, Wigtown as well, the mistake doesn't change, and nor does the first step: keep it off.
Started the engine with AdBlue in the diesel tank in Wigtown?
Then the AdBlue has left your tank. It has been drawn through your filter and your lines, and if your motor ran for any time, it has got to your high-pressure pump and your injectors.
Perhaps coming back from Southfield Park, or part way across Wigtown, your engine might go lumpy, smoke, drop power, light up the dash or cut out. When safe, pull over and switch it off — without restarting to test. Each start pulls more of that through.
Leave the A74(M), under 50 miles from Wigtown, by the next junction and stop safely, rather than carrying on.
Distance counts: each mile pushes the AdBlue further in, so driving towards Carlisle, over 50 miles away, gives a far bigger job than hopping across Wigtown to the car park by New Mercat Cross. Tell us about how far it had come.
Wherever the vehicle came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to rinse out after the engine has been running. When it's caught quickly, permanent damage is very unusual.
What does an AdBlue drain on a diesel involve around Wigtown?
The vehicle remains put, whether that is a street beside Old Mercat Cross, a drive, a layby or a filling station in Wigtown, and the van comes to it. The job depends on three answers, which we get first — which fluid got in, the amount, and whether the motor has run.
Right there, the tank is then emptied, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea come out as one. The system is rinsed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol, since what it leaves behind doesn't rinse out on its own. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Not run? Then count on roughly half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumping gear is explosion-proof, and so a live forecourt is no problem, and it's hushed enough for a residential street late at night.
New diesel goes in to prime your system, and that is the last step. After that we start the car and you drive off, whether from a parking space by the nearest station or a drive in Wigtown. The check before our engineers go is that it runs properly on clean diesel. Our engineers do it all wherever the vehicle has stopped, and it never needs to be taken to a garage. You get a VAT invoice and an engineer report afterwards, which is what insurers ask for.
About Wigtown and where it is
Wigtown is a small coastal town in Dumfries and Galloway, situated near the mouth of the River Bladnoch at an elevation of 44 metres. Wigtown has a mix of housing types, with semi-detached homes being particularly prevalent, and is surrounded by nearby places such as Duncan Park and Braehead. Wigtown is located close to the village of Bladnoch and is approximately 60 miles from the city of Carlisle. Wigtown has a population of around 973 people.
AdBlue drains across Dumfries and Galloway, Wigtown included
Duncan Park, Bladnoch and Braehead are among the places near Wigtown that the same vans serve, together with much of Dumfries and Galloway further out, throughout the DG postcode area. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Anywhere the car stands — a drive at home, a side street, a parking area, a forecourt — we drain it on the spot, with no need to bring it to us; which suits Wigtown, a coastal town, well.
What does AdBlue in a diesel tank cost to sort out around Wigtown?
Each job is different, so not one single quote would be honest. What moves the cost is, first, whether your engine has been running and for how long; then how much AdBlue got in; and finally where your car is and whether a van can get to it safely, which is easier on an open drive than in a tight gap behind Wigtown Parish Church Hall.
What went in, how much, and whether it ran: every Wigtown call opens by asking exactly that, before any quote, not after. Those answers turn a range into a straight price.
Quoted on the call before the engineer heads out, the job is settled on the day — card or phone, no deposit. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
Wigtown: still beside the vehicle?
Then, the most helpful thing to do with the car is to leave it. Motor off, keys out, ignition off. Say it was AdBlue, roughly what quantity, and whether the engine ran, on 0333 366 0103. From there Petrol in Diesel handles it, across Wigtown or anywhere in Dumfries and Galloway.