Woodhaven: AdBlue in the Diesel Tank? Leave It Off
If AdBlue has gone into your diesel tank, leave the engine off and leave the ignition off. Water with urea mixed in it: that's AdBlue. The harm starts once it's sucked through your pump — it won't ignite, and it will not combine with diesel. If the engine hasn't run yet, AdBlue in a diesel tank is normally emptied and carefully cleaned where the vehicle stands around Woodhaven. Call 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else.
What to do right now, Woodhaven: AdBlue in the diesel tank
Do these:
- Remove your keys, and that stops someone switching the electrics on.
- Hazards on, if moving traffic is anywhere near.
- Which fluid, and about how much quantity? Hang on to the bottle or the receipt, and our engineers will see.
- The van locates you quickest with a postcode starting DD6 8, or simply the name of a street nearby, so call from the car.
Things not to do:
- Not even for a second, and not to shift your car: the motor remains off.
- Many diesels power their fuel pump the instant the ignition goes on, and so keep it off.
- No more fuel on top. The AdBlue won't mix, so it's wasted.
- Even a short stretch up Castle Bank is too far to drive the vehicle.
- Don't try to drain it yourself by the roadside.
Ask the attendants to help you roll your car away from the pumps if you are on a forecourt around Woodhaven, whether it's the Shell or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive, leave it just where it sits.
AdBlue in a diesel tank, and what it does there
The motor isn't what AdBlue is made for; your exhaust is. Kept in a separate tank, it's squirted into the exhaust stream to clean the fumes. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is built to handle it.
It doesn't blend. Once it is poured into a tank of diesel, AdBlue behaves nothing like fuel. It is heavier than diesel, so it sinks and gathers at the bottom of the tank, which is where the pickup sucks fuel from. The first thing your fuel system pulls through, after it runs, is the AdBlue. So a car that had AdBlue poured in on a drive in Drumoig last night, and has not been started since, is still the simple case: the AdBlue is lying at the bottom of the tank, and nothing has pulled it in.
From there it does two kinds of damage. It eats at certain metals found in fuel components, working on whatever it touches until it's cleared from the system. And when the water goes, the urea turns into crystals that block filters and settle in tiny passages. Overnight, a vehicle parked in Woodhaven with AdBlue through its pipework grows worse; where it's just inside that tank, nothing changes. Then there is the water: it offers no protection to the parts that need it the most — the injection pump and every injector.
Why is AdBlue in a diesel regularly the bigger fault?
Put petrol in a diesel at the Tesco and you have a fault of thin fuel. No harm comes while it sits unused, blended into your diesel — only when your motor works on it.
AdBlue in a diesel is a different problem: not thin fuel, but no fuel at all. Since it doesn't burn, running it through isn't an option. Crystals and corrosion stay after the next fill, and AdBlue separates again from the diesel, so thinning it can't help. That is why the flush counts more, and trying your engine "to see" costs more here than almost any other slip — in Pickletillum or the heart of Woodhaven equally.
The same good news applies as with petrol. Anywhere around Fife the car has come to rest, an unstarted motor means the AdBlue still inside the tank: the simplest bit of a fuel system to empty.
How does AdBlue end up in a diesel tank around Woodhaven?
Nobody means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of vehicles sits right next to your diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it happens with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the forecourt.
A few familiar ways cover most cases. The refill is rushed outside the local primary school, because the dash lit up with a warning while the kids were taken off. Close to Castle Brae, a driver pours a bottle in at home after work. Or your car is topped up in the car park at Brig O' Tay, in poor light, by a person who has never opened that flap before.
It occurs most in the cars people know least: a hire car, a new car, a company car, or the second vehicle of a household with one diesel and one petrol. Wherever you're in Woodhaven or the rest of Fife, it's the same mistake and the same first answer: leave it off.
Woodhaven: started your engine with AdBlue in your diesel tank?
In that case, the AdBlue is no longer in your tank. Through your filter, through the lines, and — given any running time — on to the injection pump and each injector: that is how far it has gone.
Expect lumpy running, smoke, falling power, warnings on the dash, or a stall — coming back from Coronation Gardens, perhaps, or part way across Woodhaven. No restarting to check: stop when safe, then turn everything off. More of it is pulled through with each start.
Woodhaven lies under 25 miles from the M90; if you were on it, exit at the first junction and stop somewhere safe rather than carrying on.
How far it went counts. A couple of hundred yards across Woodhaven to the car park by Waterstone Crook Sports Centre is a very different job from a run towards Dundee, under 3 miles away, with the AdBlue reaching further into your system with each mile. Let us know about how far it had come.
There is more to rinse out once your engine has run, and our technicians do all of it where your car has stopped. If it is spotted soon, lasting damage is very unusual.
Woodhaven: how AdBlue is drained from a diesel
We come to the car, wherever it has stopped in Woodhaven: a side street near Newport A.F.C., a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. The job depends on three answers, which our technicians get first — which fluid was put in, the quantity, and if the engine has run.
On the spot, that tank is then emptied, and both the polluted diesel and the urea leave as one. A full flush matters much more after AdBlue than after petrol, since what remains will not clear out by itself. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is cleaned — or replaced, when it needs to be — and after that your vehicle is tested. Roughly half an hour on site is typical for most jobs when your motor hasn't run. The equipment is explosion-proof, so a busy filling station is no fault, and it is quiet enough for a residential street late at night.
Priming the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. Starting the engine comes next, and then you head off from where your car is parked, by Dundee or on a drive around Woodhaven. We check it runs properly on new diesel before we go. Our engineers do it all wherever your car has stopped, and it never has to go to a workshop. At the end, you are given the paperwork for your insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer.
About Woodhaven
Woodhaven is a small suburban area situated on the coast of Fife, with a mix of detached housing and scenic views. Woodhaven sits near the city of Dundee, approximately 1.9 miles away, and is close to other nearby places such as Newport-on-Tay and Wormit. Woodhaven has a relatively low elevation of around 30 metres above sea level, typical of the coastal areas in this part of Scotland. Woodhaven is home to around 956 residents, according to approximate population figures.
AdBlue drains across Woodhaven and Fife
Throughout the DD postcode area, the vans answering AdBlue call-outs in Woodhaven serve most of Fife as well, Newport-on-Tay, Wormit and Dundee included. Near a border, or somewhere tricky to explain? Checking is better than guessing, so phone.
A van that comes to you fits Woodhaven, a residential suburb: there's no need to take the vehicle to us, since our engineers drain it on the spot, in a driveway, a side street, a parking area or a forecourt.
AdBlue in a diesel tank around Woodhaven: the cost of fixing it
Not one single figure could be honest, because each job is different. Whether the engine has run, and for how long, comes first in what changes the cost. How much AdBlue got in comes next, and then the location of the car, because an open driveway is simpler for a technician to get to safely than a tight gap behind Forgan Arts Centre.
What went in, what quantity, and whether it ran: every Woodhaven enquiry begins by asking precisely those, ahead of a quote, never afterwards. The replies turn a range into a straight quote.
The quote is given during the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, with nothing upfront. Misfuelling cover is part of plenty of insurance policies, so it is worth looking at yours before the van arrives.
Next to your car in Woodhaven, still?
Leaving your vehicle alone is, then, the most useful move open to you. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Petrol in Diesel takes over the rest, in Woodhaven or anywhere in Fife, after you phone 0333 366 0103 saying it's AdBlue, roughly how big an amount, and if the engine ran.