Antonshill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Antonshill. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that is what many modern diesels near Antonshill and Carron carry, with diesel for your motor. Your exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Many of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled on every forecourt call-out, again and again. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens around Antonshill
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
Haste comes from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Hamilton Road, or heading home in the car park outside Ochilview Bar.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip once it has started. It's a few seconds, be it in Stenhousemuir or bang in the centre of Antonshill.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Antonshill forecourt or a drive over in Larbert, take a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- Position can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Larbert? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, rather than when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever in Falkirk, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Hamilton Avenue.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out step five entirely.
Antonshill: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Gulf, the Esso or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive around Antonshill, leave the car where it stands.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit is the place to come off if you're on the M9, under a mile from Antonshill. Distance counts — a quick hop across Antonshill is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Stirling — so say about how far it went.
Antonshill: what happens when we get there
The van comes to the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Ochilview, or by the local primary school. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — which liquid, what amount, and whether it has run — so our technicians ask. Nobody heads out until you have heard the quote by phone.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Your engine is started next and checked to make sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Antonshill, briefly
Antonshill is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Falkirk, with a mix of housing types but predominantly detached homes. Antonshill sits at an elevation of 32 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Stenhousemuir, North Broomage, and South Broomage. Antonshill is located near Stirling, which is approximately 7 miles away, and is part of the wider Falkirk area. Antonshill has a population of around 4275 residents.
AdBlue drains across Falkirk, Antonshill included
Antonshill is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, North Broomage and South Broomage among them, across the FK postcode area. Fastest of all: quote a FK5 4 postcode to our van.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Stenhousemuir Cricket Club, a side street near Tryst Church (Larbert Tryst Parish Church of Scotland): we drain the car where it stands. Guessing won't help at the back of KSLB Community Group, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and ask.
The short version for Antonshill motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across Falkirk, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.