Ayr: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, if your engine has not run, it is drained and thoroughly rinsed where the car sits in Ayr. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains why it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
No single fluid but two: that is what many modern diesels around Ayr and Belmont carry, with diesel feeding the engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, and there a spray cleans the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on a lot of vehicles. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled on every forecourt call-out, again and again. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Ayr
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Burns Statue Square before work, or in the car park at The Twa Dugs heading home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then, the hand goes for the cap it would have used on the old motor — since a rental car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after begun, keeps on. Forehill or the heart of Ayr: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Ayr or a driveway out in Castlehill. Seconds, no more.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally are not.
- On plenty of cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the owner's manual will say where.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you pick up a rental or fleet car — from the nearest station's car park, say — rather than when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around South Ayrshire that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Beresford Terrace, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've located the filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two sit under a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or 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. Skip step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Ayr?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the BP, the Morrisons or somewhere else. Your own drive around Ayr is the place it stays.
Already started? Stop once it is safe, then turn off. The next junction means the place to come off when you are on the M77, under 15 miles from Ayr. A short hop across Ayr is a smaller job than a run towards Glasgow, under 50 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Ayr, and what happens next
Wherever the car has stopped, be it outside the local primary school, near Burns Monument or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because those answers decide the work and quote. No one heads out before you have had our quote over the phone.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, after the tank is drained. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we go, our engineers fire it up and check that it is running properly.
If your motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. The insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once this job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Ayr and where it is
Ayr is a coastal town in South Ayrshire, situated on the Firth of Clyde at a low elevation of around 14 metres. Ayr lies near several smaller communities, including Forehill, Wallacetown, and Craigie, and is approximately 32 miles from Glasgow. Ayr has a population of around 15970 people, predominantly living in flats. Ayr is also a significant distance from London, at around 330 miles away.
AdBlue drains across South Ayrshire, Ayr included
Wallacetown and Craigie are among the places around Ayr, a coastal town, that the same teams cover, throughout KA postcodes. Quote a postcode beginning KA7 2, and the van gets there quickest.
Moving the car isn't needed. Wherever it sits — beside Royal Scots Fusiliers South African War Memorial, on a layby en route to Wellington Square, at home — that is where it is drained. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Astoria.
For Ayr drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere around South Ayrshire.