Balfarg: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, when the motor has not turned, it is emptied and thoroughly purged where your car sits around Balfarg. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels in Leslie Parks, as well as Balfarg, run on two liquids; the motor gets only your diesel. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is topped up — mostly from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. It is in the gap that the error happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place around Balfarg?
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things coming up at once.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Huntsman's Road, or on the way home in the car park outside The Stanes.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and once the pour starts, nothing stops it. It takes a few seconds, be it in Cadham or bang in the centre of Balfarg.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Foresters Lodge or a forecourt in Balfarg.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Markinch's car park, perhaps — rather than when the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Fife that is.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not in a rush by Lochiel Court at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. It does the trick.
- The two under one flap? So make sure the lid on your diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Balfarg?
Brief list, then. First: the motor remains unstarted. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at Asda, Morrisons or any forecourt will normally lend a hand to push your car away when you ask. Your own drive in Balfarg is where it should stay.
When the engine has been run already, pull over safely and switch it off. The next junction is the place to come off when you're on the M90, under 10 miles from Balfarg. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Balfarg is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Dunfermline, and so say.
What takes place when our technicians turn up in Balfarg
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to Balfarg Henge or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote depend on three answers — which liquid, which quantity, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. During the phone call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of dispatch.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. 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 matters more here than with petrol. Once the filter is flushed — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel goes in, and then your vehicle gets tested. Then our technicians fire it up and make sure it runs smoothly before leaving.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour after our engineers arrive, provided the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Balfarg, for a moment
Balfarg is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Fife, with a mix of detached housing and local amenities. Balfarg sits at an elevation of 101 metres, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Balfarg is located near several nearby places, including Cadham, Pitcoudie, and Gateside, and is approximately 15 miles from the city of Dunfermline. Balfarg has a population of around 2356 residents, living in predominantly detached homes.
AdBlue drains across Fife, Balfarg included
Being a residential suburb, Balfarg has the same vans as nearby places — Pitcoudie, Gateside — all the way across KY postcodes and the wider area around them. Give a postcode beginning KY7 6, and our van gets there fastest.
The car remains put. Draining happens right there, be it a driveway, a street by Mosaic relief, or a layby on the way to Coul Covert. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Standing Stone Circle.
In short, for Balfarg motorists
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank after all? Leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Fife.