How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Avoch
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Avoch, finding it before your engine turns usually means a drain and a thorough flush on the spot. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — useful if you're reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
No single fluid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels around Avoch and Killen carry, with diesel for the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors put the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have the two side by side under one flap. Diesel goes in on each forecourt visit, again and again. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Avoch: how it occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Hurry comes from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off Rose Street, or heading home in the car park at Station Hotel Avoch.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, carries on. The Dock or the middle of Avoch: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Avoch or a drive over in Rosemarkie. Seconds, that's all.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually are not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it beside the diesel filler? Then check below the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Inverness Airport? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
Anywhere across Highland the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Bridge Street.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Step five is out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Avoch?
Short list, then. First: your motor remains unstarted. The fuel pump runs on many diesels as soon as your ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Fraser's Garage, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway in Avoch.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. Leave the M90 — over 50 miles out of Avoch — at the next junction. About how far did it go? Hopping across Avoch is less a job than a trip of under 10 miles towards Inverness, so say.
What happens when we arrive around Avoch
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to Steel Sails or on your own driveway. Both the work and our price rest on three replies — what fluid, which amount, and whether it's run — so we ask. Nobody heads out until you've had the price by phone.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, after the tank is cleared. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
If your motor has not run, the majority of 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. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It's worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Avoch itself
Avoch is a small coastal village in the Highland region of Scotland, situated near the Moray Firth at an elevation of around 10 metres. Avoch lies close to the city of Inverness, with nearby places including The Dock, Broomhill, and Fortrose. Avoch has a population of approximately 794 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type in the village.
AdBlue drains across Highland, Avoch included
As a coastal village, Avoch has the same vans as surrounding places — Broomhill, Fortrose — right through IV postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Give a postcode that starts IV9 8, and our van gets there fastest.
There's no need to move the car. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Deer Park, a side street near Avoch Parish Church: our technicians drain the vehicle where it is. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Avoch War Memorial.
The short version for Avoch drivers
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it sits, anywhere in Highland.