Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Barnard Castle
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Barnard Castle. Reading before the event? Then the rest covers how it happens and how to prevent it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Barnard Castle and Egglestone Abbey carry, with diesel feeding 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.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the pump happens all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less regularly. It's in that gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Barnard Castle?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Cambridge Terrace before work, or in the car park outside The Cricketers Arms on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand goes — but a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That's a second thing: a new motor.
Third, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and after the tip begins, no part stops it. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Barnard Castle or out in Startforth.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Stainton or a forecourt in Barnard Castle.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever it is in Durham — a routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — flat ground, motor off, and not in a rush by Bede Road at the roadside.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have located the filler and read the cap.
- The two under one flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still closed ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly using the own spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap was never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Barnard Castle already?
Don't start the motor: that is where the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — and so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Teesdale Service Station, the another forecourt nearby or somewhere else. At home in Barnard Castle? So the vehicle remains where it is.
Where your motor has run by now, stop safely and switch the car off. The next exit is where to come off when you're on the A1(M), under 15 miles from Barnard Castle. A short hop across Barnard Castle is a smaller job than a run towards Durham, under 25 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we turn up around Barnard Castle, what occurs?
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside Montalbo Nursery & Primary School, near Cemetery chapel or on your own driveway. Our engineers ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run, because those answers settle this work and the quote. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the entire system. 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 does not wash out on its own. A test is at the end: before that, fresh diesel is added, and the filter is cleaned or replaced as needed. After that our engineers start it and make sure it runs properly before we leave.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour job from arrival. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Barnard Castle, briefly
Barnard Castle is a town situated on the River Tees in County Durham, with a population of around 7034 people. Barnard Castle sits at an elevation of 183 metres, approximately 20 miles from the city of Durham. Barnard Castle is characterized by its semi-detached housing and riverside location, with nearby places including Startforth and Stainton Grove. Barnard Castle is located in the north of England, about 223 miles from London.
AdBlue drains about Barnard Castle, and Durham beyond
Barnard Castle is a riverside town, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Stainton Grove and Lendings among them, across the DL postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting DL12 8.
The car remains put. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Barnard Castle Cricket Club, a side street near Teesdale Leisure Centre: our engineers drain the car where it is. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Barnard Castle Library.
The short version for Barnard Castle people
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere across Durham, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103.