Bieldside: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Stop here for a moment when your diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and phone 0333 366 0103. In Bieldside, finding it before the engine runs usually means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Here in advance? In that case the rest covers how it comes about and what to stop it happening at all.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel goes to your motor — yet many modern diesels seen round Bieldside and Milltimber carry a second liquid as well. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, again and again. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Bieldside
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and running out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Bieldside Station Road, perhaps outside The Bieldside on the way home after work.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Cults or the middle of Bieldside: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Check these before pouring, at a forecourt in Bieldside or a driveway out in Auchlunies. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many cars. Look for it.
- The handbook shows which it is when your filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — at Aberdeen's car park, say — not once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
On the day the warning appears — wherever you are in Aberdeen City — a routine to use.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of North Deeside Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both share a flap, confirm it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly using its own spout.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five stays out.
Bieldside: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the engine stays off. Leave your ignition off too, since on many diesels it by itself runs the pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
On a forecourt — Co-op, BP or another — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle clear, if you ask. If you're on your own driveway in Bieldside, leave the vehicle where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Bieldside sits over 50 miles from the M90; on it, take the first exit. A short hop across Bieldside is a smaller job than a run towards Aberdeen, under 5 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up around Bieldside
By the local primary school, near St Devenick's or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, we come to it. Both the work and our quote rest on three replies — what liquid, what quantity, and whether it's run — so we ask. You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. 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. Once the filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car gets tested. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the engine hasn't run take roughly half an hour after we are there. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Wrong-fuel cover is included in many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Bieldside, briefly
Bieldside is a village in Aberdeen City, situated inland at an elevation of 52 metres, approximately 4.6 miles from Aberdeen. Bieldside is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its suburban residential nature. Bieldside sits near the communities of Cults, Riverside of Blairs, and Blairs, and is home to around 1630 residents.
AdBlue drains in Bieldside and across Aberdeen City
Being a rural village, Bieldside has the same vans as nearby places — Riverside of Blairs, Blairs — all the way through AB postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quickest of all: quote a AB15 9 postcode for our van.
No need to move the vehicle. Wherever it sits — beside Cairn - prehistoric, in a lay-by en route to West Cults Woodland, at home — that is where it is emptied. Guessing won't help behind Cults Parish Church, on a border, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and check.
Bieldside people: the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it is, anywhere in Aberdeen City: switch the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.