Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Auldearn: Why It Happens
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, carried out just where the car stands around Auldearn, is normally all it needs if found before your motor runs. Not happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the ways to prevent it for good.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
No single liquid but two: that is how many modern diesels around Auldearn and Hardmuir carry, with diesel feeding your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
There's a filler for every tank. Some vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, week in, week out. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Auldearn: how it happens
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from your car, and running out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off High Street, perhaps outside the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it knew on the old motor — because a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once begun, carries on. Whether it occurs in Kingsteps or the middle of Auldearn, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt around Auldearn or a driveway out in Nairn. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many cars say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Nairn, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Highland that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Manse Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into your diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Auldearn?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the petrol pump if you're on a forecourt — the Sainsbury's, the Gulf or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own drive around Auldearn.
Where your motor has been run already, pull over somewhere safe then switch the vehicle off. Come off the M90 — over 50 miles out of Auldearn — at the first exit. Mileage counts — a quick hop across Auldearn makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles to Inverness — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What happens when we arrive in Auldearn
The van reaches your car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Auldearn Parish Church, or by the local primary school. Our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the replies decide this work and our price. Nobody heads out before you have heard the price by phone.
Then that tank is drained and your system purged thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Filter cleaned or, if needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. The motor is started next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers leave.
Unrun cars usually need a half-hour visit after the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It's worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Auldearn and where it is
Auldearn is a small village situated on the coastal plain of the Moray Firth in Highland, Scotland, with Auldearn being close to the cities of Inverness and Elgin. Auldearn sits at an elevation of 31 metres, looking out over the sea to the north. Auldearn has a mix of housing types, but semi-detached homes are particularly prevalent in the village. Auldearn is located near other small communities such as Kingsteps and Fishertown.
Auldearn and Highland: AdBlue drains across the area
Over IV postcodes, the teams covering Auldearn — a coastal village — work the surrounding spots too, Fishertown and Moyness included. Quickest of all: quote a IV12 5 postcode for the van.
No need to move your car. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Dead Wood, a side street near Auldearn Motte: our engineers drain it where it stands. Awkward to explain, like the back of Auldearn War Memorial? By a border? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
Auldearn motorists: the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can drain it wherever it is, anywhere across Highland: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.