AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Balmedie: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where your vehicle stands around Balmedie, is normally all it takes if caught before your motor runs. Here in advance? Then the rest covers why it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your engine — yet many modern diesels seen about Balmedie and Shiels carry another liquid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Different tanks, different fillers. Plenty of cars have a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, usually from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Balmedie
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Forsyth Road before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
New-to-you vehicles come next, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors place their fillers in new places, and habit goes for the cap used on the old one.
No part halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's seconds, be it in Millden or right in the centre of Balmedie.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Potterton or a forecourt around Balmedie, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Many motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — many motors mark which belongs in which filler right there.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? Then look beneath the bonnet or in your boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Dyce, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
For the day the warning comes on — wherever you are in Aberdeenshire — a routine to use.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Eigie Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It works.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the vehicle, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Step five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Balmedie already?
Short list, then. Top of it: the engine stays unstarted. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so keep it off. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Esso, the Asda or somewhere else. Your own driveway in Balmedie is where it should stay.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M90, over 50 miles from Balmedie, that means the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Balmedie is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles towards Aberdeen, and so say.
When our technicians arrive around Balmedie, what takes place?
By the local primary school, close to Balmedie Leisure Centre or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and the quote depend on three replies — which fluid, what amount, and if it's run — so our engineers ask. That price is given over the phone, ahead of any van leaving.
Then that tank is emptied and the system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. Before we go, we fire it up and confirm that it's running correctly.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Balmedie itself
Balmedie is a coastal village in Aberdeenshire, situated approximately 7 miles north of Aberdeen. Balmedie sits at an elevation of 27 metres, overlooking the North Sea. Balmedie has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are predominant in the area. Balmedie is close to nearby places such as Millden, Hill of Keir, and Belhelvie.
AdBlue drains about Balmedie, and Aberdeenshire beyond
Hill of Keir and Belhelvie are among the towns near Balmedie, a coastal village, that the same vans cover, over AB postcodes. Fastest of all: give a AB23 8 postcode for our van.
Your car doesn't need to shift. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Balmedie Community Woodland, a side street close to Congregation Church Hall: we drain it where it is. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Balmedie Library.
The short version for Balmedie motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Aberdeenshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave it off and call 0333 366 0103.